Introduction: Surname frequency (isonymy) is used as a marker of paternal lineage and is used to characterize human population structure. Principles of isonymy were used to determine the genetic structure, migration rates, ancestry relations and origins of populations. This analysis was applied to two historically related local populations which currently are considered to be genetically isolated.
Objective: The genetic relationships and influence zones of the Aranzazu and Marinilla populations were assessed by means of surname frequency analysis.
Materials and methods: Data originated from database with the title "System of Identification of Beneficiaries of the Social Programs" database or Sisben. Population parameters such as a priori kinship (phi(ii)), population homogeneity with B and C estimators, and Cavalli-Sforza's genetic distance were calculated for (a) three towns of Marinilla and its influence zone and (b) Aranzazu. The Rionegro population served as an external, comparison population.
Results: The Aranzazu and Marinilla populations showed the higher homogeneity (B value between 0.25 and 0.5) in contrast with Rionegro (B = 0.159), as well as greater a priori kinship values (4), between 0.003 and 0.010). The lowest distances were found between Marinilla and Aranzazu.
Conclusions: Aranzazu is a population with characteristics similar to those of Marinilla and its influence zone. The close similarity of genetic characteristics for these populations is due probably to a founder effect. Furthermore, the genetic similarity predicts that genetic diseases will have the same etiology in both populations and provides optimum conditions for gene mapping studies.