Question about Eastern European trace ancestry

[sodako]

Hey, I've been lurking on this site for years now but I wanted to make a post here finally because I am interested in hearing others opinions about my question

I've taken ancestry, 23&me, and genotek (russian DNA website)

I was adopted but I was able to find out the history of my biological family through finding family members. Everything I know is word of mouth, I have never found any records on anything

Maternal side- fully NW Ukrainian back to great-grandparents, I was told of "possible" relatives who live in Poland, but no location or names were given

Paternal side- 1/2 Poltava, Ukraine (no location or further details given) and 1/2 from Pskov, Russia. Specifically, SE Pskov, near Toropets.

I was able to access my 'hacked' results from both major dna companies (post won't let me add an image, I'll type out the results)

AncestryDNA-
Central & Eastern Europe- 64.70%
Baltics- 26.94%
Russia- 5.95%
The Balkans- 2 %
Mongolia & Central Asia- North 0.21%
Jewish- 0.20%


23&Me-
Eastern European- 99.51%
Jewish- 0.28%
Manchurian & Mongolian- 0.3%
Melanesian- 0.3%


Those percentages don't exactly add up to 100% (hence why smoothing exists on the site) but my trace ancestry both shows that I have a small amount of EA and Jewish.

I have no Jewish that shows up on my Eurogenes K13 on Gedmatch, but I do have 1% East Asian (interestingly enough, I score 0% Siberian, whereas almost every other EE result has it)

Obviously, I've heard nothing about this from my biological family, but I wanted to ask you all if there is any historical reasoning to why I score these traces?

I can see how I'd have some small trace % of Jewish (Pale of Settlement) but given the rest of my ancestry, how could I have the EA, specifically Mongolian? None of the areas my family was from was near the Crimean Khanate-- could it be something like Lipka Tatar possibly? Or would Tatar show up as Central Asian/Siberian?

I don't think it could be Finno-Ugric related (like I had initially thought) because I don't score any Finnish or Siberian

Thank you. I know this ancestry is way far back, but I'm curious about it

[AndreiDNA]

Looks like you are a rather pure eastern european. If you have some exotic admixture its very distant and largely irrelevant

[Geba]

Russians usually get some East Asian. Traces of Mongolian invasions? Or could be that your Russian side is Tatar, Chuvash or anything else, not only Russians live in Russia.

For being Ukrainian, it is surprising that you have very little Balkan and have nothing of Greek&Balkan on 23&me. Normally Ukrainians get it and not in trace amounts. Maybe your NW Ukrainian side is more Belarusian or Polish-like.

[Vessna]

Russians usually get some East Asian. Traces of Mongolian invasions? Or could be that your Russian side is Tatar, Chuvash or anything else, not only Russians live in Russia.

For being Ukrainian, it is surprising that you have very little Balkan and have nothing of Greek&Balkan on 23&me. Normally Ukrainians get it and not in trace amounts. Maybe your NW Ukrainian side is more Belarusian or Polish-like.

East Asian genetic traces in Russians come from the same source as those in Finno-Ugric groups, dating back to ancient migrations long before the Mongol invasion. Not all Ukrainians get significant Balkan/Greek, mostly South/West. Northern Ukrainians are genetically similar to southern Russians.

[sodako]

Hi thank you for the comment.

One of my "hacked" 23&me results before they began their smoothing method (which was in 2022 I believe) showed I had 2% Greek & Balkan. I was able to find this out when they still allowed you to find the hacked results (I believe this was possible on the app at some point, but it's gone now). But my 23&me results are now just purely Eastern European + trace ancestry

I took my Ancestry test back in 2018, and I received no Balkan whatsoever, just Eastern European + Baltics. Then, throughout the years, I started to see 1% Sardinian show up on my Ancestry test. That was my only indication of anything 'southern' in my results. The most recent Ancestry update shows I have 2% Balkan. I think overall that's the most I have in my admixture-- and yes most western Ukrainians do have higher amounts of Balkan admixture, you are right. My NW Ukrainian side is located near the Rivne oblast.

I do not know of anything else in my family besides Ukrainians and Russians, but I noticed on my 23&me and Genotek tests I received Tatarstan as one of my regions.

[sodako]

Around what time period were the migrations before the Mongol invasion? I don't know much about Eastern Europe besides the side of Finno-Ugric history. I always assumed that the traces of East / Central Asian for Eastern Europeans were mainly Tatar / Mongolian. Also, doesn't modern tests like 23&me and Ancestry also only go back around to the 1700s? Who really knows..

I believe Northern Ukrainians are closest to Belarusians and NE Poles- southern Russians like those in Belgorod and Rostov are closest to Eastern Ukrainians. I specifically recall that samples from Smolensk and (possibly?) Bryansk are closest to Belarusians.
Those regions tend to have more of a Baltic shift than those in the other border regions of Russia

[Peterski]

Check what you score in this test - https://www.exploreyourdna.com/DNAOrigin.aspx

[Geba]

East Asian genetic traces in Russians come from the same source as those in Finno-Ugric groups, dating back to ancient migrations long before the Mongol invasion. Not all Ukrainians get significant Balkan/Greek, mostly South/West. Northern Ukrainians are genetically similar to southern Russians.

I agree with the first statement that the so-called east Asian can come from Finno-Ugric ancestry, but at such low % it must be hundreds of years back and unprovable.

From my experience all Ukrainians have Balkan/Greek on 23&me and Balkans on Ancestry. But I don't have northern Ukrainian results, so it may be true. What have noticed is that northern Ukrainians get a lot of so-called Baltic ancestry.

[Geba]

I do not know of anything else in my family besides Ukrainians and Russians, but I noticed on my 23&me and Genotek tests I received Tatarstan as one of my regions.

Maybe it is a sign if both say the same, but it can be wrong too...Maybe you can find matches from there and check with them.

[AndreiDNA]

East Asian genetic traces in Russians come from the same source as those in Finno-Ugric groups, dating back to ancient migrations long before the Mongol invasion. Not all Ukrainians get significant Balkan/Greek, mostly South/West. Northern Ukrainians are genetically similar to southern Russians.

Thats untrue. Russians have turkic admixture as well, not only Uralic.
Here's what my mother scores on illustrative:
138603138604138605
Her 2 way admixture is nothing but turkic groups.

[Vessna]

Thats untrue. Russians have turkic admixture as well, not only Uralic.
Here's what my mother scores on illustrative:
138603138604138605
Her 2 way admixture is nothing but turkic groups.

I didn’t say anything about Turkic admixture, it is absolutely possible, typically in southern shifted Russians. I only commented on East Asian. Illustrative 2 and 3 way models are just mathematical predictions. I don’t find them accurate especially beyond the first three. You can theoretically model a Russian as Lithuanian + Bashkir or a Belarusian as Latvian+ Anatolian Turkish, doesn’t mean they necessarily have this ancestry, that’s why it’s called an “unsupervised model”. What are your mom’s first three predictive models?

[sodako]

I would assume Finno-Ugric related EA would be found with a Finnish %. I could be wrong though (kind of like how Udmurt / Mari results are)

[sodako]

Unfortunately, almost all of my dna matches are distant. The only close matches I have are majority NW Ukrainian, and two Russian ones (from Pskov). And even at that, they are all 2-3rd cousins. I have read that 23&me's recent ancestor locations go back at least 200 years-- maybe there's some reason to that. I don't pay for 23&me anymore, and overall the site hasn't been very helpful for me genealogy wise.

Genotek lists 14 dna matches under Tatarstan and reads "Similarities in your DNA with the indigenous people of this region — 85%"
Almost all of the matches have mixed Russian/Tatar family trees. Maybe there's something there, maybe not. Who knows.

[Not a Cop]

Unfortunately, almost all of my dna matches are distant. The only close matches I have are majority NW Ukrainian, and two Russian ones (from Pskov). And even at that, they are all 2-3rd cousins. I have read that 23&me's recent ancestor locations go back at least 200 years-- maybe there's some reason to that. I don't pay for 23&me anymore, and overall the site hasn't been very helpful for me genealogy wise.

Genotek lists 14 dna matches under Tatarstan and reads "Similarities in your DNA with the indigenous people of this region — 85%"
Almost all of the matches have mixed Russian/Tatar family trees. Maybe there's something there, maybe not. Who knows.

You can try gedmatch to dig a bit deeper.

[Leto]

Thats untrue. Russians have turkic admixture as well, not only Uralic.
Here's what my mother scores on illustrative:
138603138604138605
Her 2 way admixture is nothing but turkic groups.
In modern Russia you can find just about anything, however as a rule, ethnic Russians without known admixture from Turkics have little to none of that sort of admixture.

[Leto]

Unfortunately, almost all of my dna matches are distant. The only close matches I have are majority NW Ukrainian, and two Russian ones (from Pskov). And even at that, they are all 2-3rd cousins. I have read that 23&me's recent ancestor locations go back at least 200 years-- maybe there's some reason to that. I don't pay for 23&me anymore, and overall the site hasn't been very helpful for me genealogy wise.

Genotek lists 14 dna matches under Tatarstan and reads "Similarities in your DNA with the indigenous people of this region — 85%"
Almost all of the matches have mixed Russian/Tatar family trees. Maybe there's something there, maybe not. Who knows.
Share your Gedmatch number with me, if you don't mind. If you do mind, then no problem.

[sodako]

I can share with you my Eurogenes K13 results or my results from another calculator if you'd like

[sodako]

Are there ethnic Russian locations that are expected to have Turkic admixture, even though they are fully Russian on paper? (Kind of like how Hungarians may have trace Central Asian/ East Asian on 23&me-- I've seen this quite often)
Like maybe some ethnic Russians from Chelyabinsk, Bashkortostan, or Tatarstan?

I've also seen that ethnic Russians from places like Arkhangelsk be almost completely Finnic shifted- to the point where their closest populations on Gedmatch are Finnic over Slavic. I assume in this case, that they must have some assimilated Finno-Ugric in their family tree

[Vessna]

In modern Russia you can find just about anything, however as a rule, ethnic Russians without known admixture from Turkics have little to none of that sort of admixture.

Agreed.

[Leto]

Are there ethnic Russian locations that are expected to have Turkic admixture, even though they are fully Russian on paper? (Kind of like how Hungarians may have trace Central Asian/ East Asian on 23&me-- I've seen this quite often)
Like maybe some ethnic Russians from Chelyabinsk, Bashkortostan, or Tatarstan?

I've also seen that ethnic Russians from places like Arkhangelsk be almost completely Finnic shifted- to the point where their closest populations on Gedmatch are Finnic over Slavic. I assume in this case, that they must have some assimilated Finno-Ugric in their family tree
Much of present-day Russia was populated in the last 400-500 years, in some parts it's barely 200 years. For example Siberia, the Far East but also many parts of the south. Asian Russia has a lot of Northern Russian ancestry because the initial waves of settlers came from up there. However, parts of Siberia and especially the Far East also received a lot of immigration from modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia.

[Vessna]

Are there ethnic Russian locations that are expected to have Turkic admixture, even though they are fully Russian on paper? (Kind of like how Hungarians may have trace Central Asian/ East Asian on 23&me-- I've seen this quite often)
Like maybe some ethnic Russians from Chelyabinsk, Bashkortostan, or Tatarstan?

I've also seen that ethnic Russians from places like Arkhangelsk be almost completely Finnic shifted- to the point where their closest populations on Gedmatch are Finnic over Slavic. I assume in this case, that they must have some assimilated Finno-Ugric in their family tree

Ural was settled primarily by Northern Russians that are heavily Finno-Ugric shifted.

[sodako]

Yeah I have seen in some Tatar/Baskhir results have 1% Finnish sometimes. Your statement backs up this idea

[sodako]

Yes I have noticed that on Genotek (a Russian dna test) I used to have Primorskiy Krai as one of my regions. I assumed that this was due to the Ukrainian people who moved out to the far east during the time periods you mentioned.

By the way I can send my Eurogenes K13 results if you'd like to see them. I don't think Gedmatch has been updated in about 12 years but it may still have some accuracy. I don't see any indication on there that I have any trace Jewish ancestry though. I have around 4% East Med, but the Ukrainian average for Eurogenes says the average Ukrainian has about 4% as well. I don't know how this would show in Gedmatch (I have always taken it that Gedmatch shows "ancient" admixture)
I notice that the average Siberian % for Ukrainians is around 1.9%, whereas I have 0% Siberian on Gedmatch, only 1% EA. I have always found this a bit strange. But then again, Gedmatch being 12 years old and not updating since then, I don't know how accurate these percentages are, especially because of how small they are too. It seems that EA peaks in very eastern populations, even Volga-Ural groups don't seem to score a whole lot of EA, it's moreso Siberian. The Tatar reference population for Eurogenes says that they have predominantly more Siberian (~15%) moreso than EA, which is around 3%.

[Marusia]

It was not immigration to Siberia it was deportation

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

Hey, I've been lurking on this site for years now but I wanted to make a post here finally because I am interested in hearing others opinions about my question

I've taken ancestry, 23&me, and genotek (russian DNA website)

I was adopted but I was able to find out the history of my biological family through finding family members. Everything I know is word of mouth, I have never found any records on anything

Maternal side- fully NW Ukrainian back to great-grandparents, I was told of "possible" relatives who live in Poland, but no location or names were given

Paternal side- 1/2 Poltava, Ukraine (no location or further details given) and 1/2 from Pskov, Russia. Specifically, SE Pskov, near Toropets.

I was able to access my 'hacked' results from both major dna companies (post won't let me add an image, I'll type out the results)

AncestryDNA-
Central & Eastern Europe- 64.70%
Baltics- 26.94%
Russia- 5.95%
The Balkans- 2 %
Mongolia & Central Asia- North 0.21%
Jewish- 0.20%


23&Me-
Eastern European- 99.51%
Jewish- 0.28%
Manchurian & Mongolian- 0.3%
Melanesian- 0.3%


Those percentages don't exactly add up to 100% (hence why smoothing exists on the site) but my trace ancestry both shows that I have a small amount of EA and Jewish.

I have no Jewish that shows up on my Eurogenes K13 on Gedmatch, but I do have 1% East Asian (interestingly enough, I score 0% Siberian, whereas almost every other EE result has it)

Obviously, I've heard nothing about this from my biological family, but I wanted to ask you all if there is any historical reasoning to why I score these traces?

I can see how I'd have some small trace % of Jewish (Pale of Settlement) but given the rest of my ancestry, how could I have the EA, specifically Mongolian? None of the areas my family was from was near the Crimean Khanate-- could it be something like Lipka Tatar possibly? Or would Tatar show up as Central Asian/Siberian?

I don't think it could be Finno-Ugric related (like I had initially thought) because I don't score any Finnish or Siberian

Thank you. I know this ancestry is way far back, but I'm curious about it

Ukraine dating from Kievan Rus has been absorbing Turkic people. There was quite a bit of intermarriage with Cumans/Polovtsy and Rus, and even the notorious Khazars, who were also partially absorbed into Rus evantually. There was settlements of Black Klobuks (mixture of Turkic groups) into parts of right-bank Ukraine. Also, Antes heavily migrated into the forrest-steppe areas of Northern Ukraine and among Antes there were Avars and Bulgars, so even North-West Ukraine was influenced by them. And again I mentioned Cumans, Cumans migrated to the Carpathians where they settled and ruled partially.

Although you mentioned Poltava, well Poltava was on the edge of the Steppes, it was also Cossack - the proto-Cossacks were Turkic and then became more Ruthenized when right-Bank Ukrainians started to migrate to the Steppe but even before that Poltava was the site of the Hlyn Pincipality. Poltava is one of the areas in northern Ukraine where Turanid types are more prominent, by the way.


The Hlyn principality was a medieval state in what is now the Poltava region of Ukraine, ruled by descendants of Mamaia, a Crimean Golden Horde prince. It emerged during the collapse of the Golden Horde, along with the Crimean Khanate, and had an ethnically diverse population, including Turkic Kipchaks. The princes of Hlynsk shared a similar coat of arms, a red background with the tarak-tamga, with the Crimean Tatars.

The point is basically all regions of Ukraine have a history of interacting with Turkic/Central Asian people and their admixture can be found to different extents.

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

Ural was settled primarily by Northern Russians that are heavily Finno-Ugric shifted.

Many Cossack populations in Russia absorbed Turkic people.

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

It was not immigration to Siberia it was deportation

No, many Ukrainians also immigrated to Siberia for work after the feudal era and before Socialism. There's a good Ukrainian movie dealing with a village in Ukraine, after much of their inhabitants move to Siberia called Bread and Salt.

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

Hi thank you for the comment.

One of my "hacked" 23&me results before they began their smoothing method (which was in 2022 I believe) showed I had 2% Greek & Balkan. I was able to find this out when they still allowed you to find the hacked results (I believe this was possible on the app at some point, but it's gone now). But my 23&me results are now just purely Eastern European + trace ancestry

I took my Ancestry test back in 2018, and I received no Balkan whatsoever, just Eastern European + Baltics. Then, throughout the years, I started to see 1% Sardinian show up on my Ancestry test. That was my only indication of anything 'southern' in my results. The most recent Ancestry update shows I have 2% Balkan. I think overall that's the most I have in my admixture-- and yes most western Ukrainians do have higher amounts of Balkan admixture, you are right. My NW Ukrainian side is located near the Rivne oblast.

I do not know of anything else in my family besides Ukrainians and Russians, but I noticed on my 23&me and Genotek tests I received Tatarstan as one of my regions.
People in Rivne will probably not score a lot of Balkan at all.

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

Around what time period were the migrations before the Mongol invasion? I don't know much about Eastern Europe besides the side of Finno-Ugric history. I always assumed that the traces of East / Central Asian for Eastern Europeans were mainly Tatar / Mongolian. Also, doesn't modern tests like 23&me and Ancestry also only go back around to the 1700s? Who really knows..

I believe Northern Ukrainians are closest to Belarusians and NE Poles- southern Russians like those in Belgorod and Rostov are closest to Eastern Ukrainians. I specifically recall that samples from Smolensk and (possibly?) Bryansk are closest to Belarusians.
Those regions tend to have more of a Baltic shift than those in the other border regions of Russia

Ukraine is literally in the Eurasian steppes.. through out history there has been back and forth migration.

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

Thats untrue. Russians have turkic admixture as well, not only Uralic.
Here's what my mother scores on illustrative:
138603138604138605
Her 2 way admixture is nothing but turkic groups.

Where in Russia is your mom from BTW?

[uMkhonto we Sizwe]

In modern Russia you can find just about anything, however as a rule, ethnic Russians without known admixture from Turkics have little to none of that sort of admixture.
Again, not true for certain Russian Cossack groups..

[Vessna]

Again, not true for certain Russian Cossack groups..

Cossacks is a separate cultural group within Russia. I would not consider them Russian proper.