DNA data shows close family links

From Britain to the Balkans, Europeans are part of one big family, scientists have learned.

Despite being separated by thousands of miles, they have shared ancestors dating back little more than a dozen generations.

Researchers compared the DNA of more than 2,000 individuals from all over Europe and found surprising levels of kinship between them.

As expected, the genetic relatedness of any two people diminished the further apart they lived. But even a pair of individuals in the UK and Turkey, separated by a distance of 2,000 miles, were likely to have relations in common who lived 1,000 years ago.

Italians turned out to be one of the most diverse groups, according to the findings. They tended to have lower levels of relatedness to one another and to other Europeans, possibly because of the long history of distinct cultures within the Italian peninsular.

In contrast, many eastern European showed subtly higher levels of relatedness. This may reflect the expansion of Slavic peoples into Europe more than 1,000 years ago.

"What's remarkable about this is how closely everyone is related to each other," said study leader Professor Graham Coop, from the University of California at Davis, US. "On a genealogical level, everyone in Europe traces back to nearly the same set of ancestors within a thousand years. This was predicted by theory over a decade ago, and we now have concrete evidence from DNA data."

Although the research focused on Europe, the same pattern is likely to apply to the rest of the world, he added.

Demographic shifts, historic migrations, physical barriers such as mountain ranges, and language differences all helped to separate people, said the scientists. However, the differences were relatively small.

"The overall picture is that everybody is related, and we are looking at only subtle differences between regions," said Prof Coop. The findings are published in the online journal Public Library of Science Biology.

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DNA data shows close family links