The genetic relatedness of different European nationalities

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This map is really interesting. I'm half English and half Irish and I find it interesting how closely related the Irish and English are apparently to Dutch and Norwegians, and also how unrelated Swedes and especially Finns are to Danes and Norwegians. In fact Finns are genetically distinct from all Europeans which makes sense considering their Finno-Ugric language. I wonder if they cluster the closest to Estonians, Latvians, northern Russians and Lithuanians.

One can also see the overlap between the different Mediterranean populations; for example you wouldn't expect Portugal and Italy to have much actual genetic overlap, but they do, which imo suggests migration from the Italian Peninsula to other parts of the Roman Empire during ancient times.

Romanians especially, seem all over the map, which doesn't surprise me.

Don't forget Danes and Germans The three Anglo-Saxon tribes that migrated to England in the 5th and 6th century came from Denmark (Jutes) and Germany (Saxons. The Angles lived both in modern day Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland). Another immigration wave of Danish people (vikings) occured in the 9th century.

The only relation between the English and the Dutch is that the Anglo-Saxon tribes also settled in the Nothern Netherlands, where they became known as Frisians.

Actually according to this map, there is only a little bit of overlap between English people and the people of Germany, which is quite interesting.

That is very odd considering that there is a huge genetic overlap between Dutch and Northern German people. The overlap between the Dutch and English should be about the same as between the English and Germans. But the Danes contributed even more to the English gene pool.

Not that it really matters though, because all modern day people are mutts and mongrels I just find it interesting from a historical perspective.

Truth!

There's a book on the subject by archaeogeneticist Bryan Sykes called The Seven Daughters of Eve.
He gets into other topics as well, such as the origin of the first settlers of Polynesia.
Pretty fascinating- highly recommend.

You can see the genetic legacy of all those Viking raids.

rapejokelol?

In the valleys, some people swear they can still hear the faint pounding of those genetic jackhammers.

That is odd-that Finnland is floating out there in space-not even touchng the rest of non-Russian Europe. Lingustically Finnland is also unrelated to most of europe. But the Finns linguistic cousins -the Hungarians are embedded right in with the rest of europe.

Apparently they split Germany ( or German speaking peoples) in two - Deutche 1 and Deutche 2. Northern and Southern.

Bertlitz German that American school kids learn is actually the dialect of the alpine southern part of the German speaking world (Bavaria, Switzerland, Austria). In that offical version of german the verb for "consuming food with your mouth" is "essen".

In the northern german dialects the word is "etten". Lingusitially the coastal part of Germany is much closer to both the Netherlands and to England. And this shows that genetically north germans overlap with the Dutch and the English as well.

Indeed one could almost say the Dutch, Germans and English form an ethnic continuum. Germany seems very similar to the States/Canada/England imo, even though I can only understand the most basic sentences in the language.

From the wiki article on the genetic makeup of Europe:

Homo sapiens appeared in Europe roughly 40,000 years ago, with the settlement of the Cro-magnons. Over the prehistoric period there was continual immigration to Europe, notably by the immediate descendents of the Proto-Indo-Europeans who migrated west after the advent of the neolithic revolution.[12]
The vast majority of Europe’s inhabitants are of the European (or Caucasoid) geographic race, characterized by pale or lightly pigmented skin, variability in eye and hair colour, and a number of biochemical similarities.[13]
[edit]MtDna and Y-Dna
Studies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have suggested substantial genetic homogeneity of European populations,[14] with only a few geographic or linguistic isolates appearing to be genetic isolates as well.[15] On the other hand, analyses of the Y chromosome [16] [17] and of autosomal diversity [18] have shown a general gradient of genetic similarity running from the southeast to the northwest of the continent.
But, well-known areas with Mt-Dna and Y-Dna differences, discovered by grouping and tracking prehistorical genotype migrations, are in Iberia, in relation to the Basques of northern Spain and southwest France; and the Balkans of southeast Europe. Both were areas of refuge where early modern humans settled over 50,000 years ago, during the last ice age.[citation needed]


Europe is a pretty mixed bag of White Guys (mostly).

ruveyn

Most Europeans are related, linguistically or genetically, with the notable exception of the Basque people of Navarre, who have been there longer than anyone else

I would argue the Basque are quite closely related to the Welsh.

why? That would be incorrect in any case, the Basque have been extensively researched and this is the first time I have ever heard mention of a Welsh connection.

I dont see any connection either.
If there is any it is not linguistic.

The origin of the Basques is unknown.

Welsh is virtually the same language as Breton- the celtic language spoken at the pointed end of France that juts into the Atlantic. Both the Bretons andthe Welsh are of known origins- both are remnants of the "Britons" the Celtic inhabitants of Britain conquered by the Romans- but were then forced to flee the parts of Britain siezed by the German ic Anglo Saxons after the fall of Rome ( the parts that are now 'England'). Welsh is more distantly related to Irish and Scottish ( also celtic). And all of the Celtic languages are a subset of the Indo European languages.

Basque is a linguistic isolate. Like Hungarian and Finnish it is not Indo European. But unlike those two (which are distant cousins of each other and with certain aboriginal languages in Siberia) Basque is not related to ANY other language.

The Basques may have been the original europeans- descended directly from the Cro Magnons. The Welsh were clearly part the latter invaders from the east -along with all of the other IndoEuropean speakers.