German communities in Eastern Europe

[Tomenable]

In the Sudetenland, many of them agitated to have it rejoined to Germany. The same was true in other areas.

Indeed (on the other hand, not all of Sudeten Germans agitated for that, and not all were happy about being "reunited" - I'm not even sure if the majority did). After WW1, American experts recommended that Sudetenland should be part of Czechoslovakia (and indeed it became part of it, because Great Britain had a Pro-Czechoslovak stance, just like the USA and France, in contrast to Britain's Anti-Polish attitude):

Here is their reasoning:

https://archive.org/stream/MyDiaryA...yAtConferenceOfParis-Vol4#page/n247/mode/2up/

 

[Tomenable]

And here is how American experts wanted to draw the border of independent Poland after 1918 (they wanted to give Poland more favourable borders than Poland got in reality, unfortunately Great Britain had a very Anti-Polish stance, and it opposed American and French opinions about Polish borders):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inquiry

Map (Danzig, all of Upper Silesia and parts of East Prussia with Polish-speaking population were to become Polish):

^^^
Gdańsk-Malbork-Iława-Działdowo-Mława-Warsaw railway line was to become Polish:

As was the Masurian Lake District which provides a border which is easy to defend:

The impact of the glacier on the evolution of terrain in Warmia-Masuria

 

[Angela]

Tomenable, I'm not an expert on Prussians. However, my impression has always been that the people of Prussia were always quite close to East Europeans genetically. They then were "Germanized", which included a genetic element, but also involved a pronounced cultural imposition. The same thing happened in the case of populations close to France, in parts of Switzerland, etc.

 

[Joey37]

I'm the opposite of Tomenable...I have a R1a-M458 Y haplogroup and zero Eastern Europe autosomal...also have a Polish last name, since my biological grandfather left the family when my Dad was six and Nana made her three sons take their new stepdad's last name. Looking at that Thirty Years' War map, the area where my male line comes from (northern Wurttemberg), my God, 66% or more killed! The poor Palatinate...

 

[Tomenable]

my impression has always been that the people of Prussia were always quite close to East Europeans genetically

Ancient DNA is slowly revealing the genetic prehistory of the region. We already have several aDNA samples contemporary with the Lusatian culture, but all of them are from the fringes of that culture (it will be harder to find samples from the core area, because "Lusatians" practiced cremation):

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#5/51.138/25.576

Tollensetal (Welzin) - DNA of warriors who died in battle ca. 1250 BC
Turlojiske - 3 samples dated to 1010-800, 930-810, 908-485 BC
Halberstadt - 1 sample (I0099/HAL36C) dated to 1113-1020 BC
Bylany - two Hallstatt culture samples dated to ca. 850-700 BC

This map shows cultural (archaeological) situation around year 1200 BC. In Suchowola a new Lusatian culture settlement dated to 800-500 BC has been discovered recently, so it turns out that this culture extended even more to the north-east (the distance between Suchowola and Turlojiske is 90 km). Chotyniec, is a recently discovered Scythian settlement from 700-500 BC:

According to one theory, the Lusatian culture could be a Pre-Proto-Slavic culture:

http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fds/fds_1.htm

^^^ Map:

 

[Joey37]

Okay. Sure.

 

[mha]

Where do you have this info from?

Eastern Germans usually do not plot anywhere close to West Germans in PCA graphs. They have mixed a lot.

One known exception are Volga Germans, but it was a late migration, they settled in Russia in the 1700s. Most of them still plot close to South Germans (which is where most of Volga Germans originally came from in the 1700s).

It is also said that Baltic Germans in Latvia and Estonia remained separate, but I haven't seen their results.

In East Prussia for example it was a different situation than in Latvia, and huge mixing/assimilation took place.

Looking from semantic perspective, “communities” are known to others when they are distinctive … or, with other words, assimilated people are not communities. I believe there were more German migrants to Slavic lands, but are now without special German identity, so not known to everybody.

Why some communities kept their original identity? As it was already told, some migrations were relatively recent, people entered into nationalistic era more homogenous, and from then on, they cultivated their tradition/language. I suppose the number of group members is also relevant, more is obviously better than less.

Environmental conditions could also play a factor here, as migrants were often transferred to less populated, and less hostile environments. One local example from Slovenia are Kočevarji, who were settled in the heart of huge forest area, so they stayed isolated until 20th century.

 

[mha]

More hostile ... not less

 

[martinmkp]

This topic is a very nice... although interrupted with several off-topic notes

I can not comment Eastern Europe, but in medieval Central European Slovakia, that time called Upper Hungary and fully integrated into Habsburg Empire, it is believed that 20% inhabitants were Germans, 20% Hungarians and 60% Slavs, mostly Slovaks in modern term.

Hungarians occupied southern Slovak lowlands mostly and have been there continuously up till now (still around 10% of population of modern Slovakia).

Germans, or Karpatendeutsche, occupied three important islands for Centuries: Small Carpathians Area, Central Slovakian Mountains (Gold, Silver and Copper mines), and Zipser Region (now called Spis). They immigrated to Slovakia (Upper Hungary) from mostly Frankenland and later Old Bavaria through Danube river (started around 1000 and increased around 1300) and from Sachsen and Schlesien regions (through Krakow-Krakau territory).
Recently, there were strong immigration (18-19 Century) from Schwaben territory.

Germans were a very significant linguistic and cultural separate group in what is called today Slovakia. They had their own culture, different from other ethnic groups (including fe daily dress- cloth etc).

Genetically, they intermarried with Slovaks in those three regions, but strictly kept their own culture and traditions. If there would not be a forcible expultion after WWII (in 1946 mostly), they would certainly kept their cultural phenomena till nowadays.

Many Slovaks I personally know who have had their German roots and now are associated with Slovak culture, are today very proud of their German roots and are keeping them partially alive. It is a very pity that so called Deutschtum has dissapeared in Slovak territories due to after war period and due to lack of interest from Germany to keep theirs cultural heritage outside of DE borders. I think the approach of Germany to its own cultural heritage in Slovakia is very regrettable and their null to zero interest in everything German outside of their own borders is historically unexcusable.

I would predict that genetically, there are still strong German - influenced "population islands" in Slovakia. It is due to strong genetic traces (even after the expultion of majority of German language populations) of Germans in those three regions.

My personal example:
Quarter of my genofond is coming from Schlesien-Preussen (19 Century immigration to Slovakia from Reinerz), culturally Germans, no known Czech or Polish intermarriages.
Quarter of the genofond is coming from Small Carpathian German cities ladies who were very happy to marry our Croatian- Slovak little noble family working for Habsburgs as from early 1600 (no Hungarian marriages). And I have also those Zipser Germans from Kneissen in my blood.
Genetically? Of course absolut mixture of Slavic-Germanic roots with an autosomal affinity (only theoretical) to Grenzmark, Lusitian Sorbs, Czechs, Brandenburg, Volga Germans, Carpathia, Polish Silesia and many more .
Jokingly, it is still better mix as that of my proudly Germanic Ost-Austrian friends who did inherit from their Hungarian, Czech, Croatian, Slovenian, Krakauer, Sudetenlander etc etc forefathers . And now they vote for Ultraright movements (to be frank, I understand those genetically mixed folks as well why they are so prudent).

In this topic, I would say that Angela as well as Tomenable are right in their conclutions. If we stop thinking too "Germanic" or too "Slavic", we shall sooner or later conclude on our proudly mixed blood in Central Europe from Pommern through Preussen to Pannonia. Is not it beautiful? only fool makes borders. I still insist there are and never were (with very few exceptions) borders between East and West on Elbe river .

I only would be happy if we stop thinking too Slavic or too Germanic and will research more deeply our earlier Indo-European and pre Indo-European roots. Beeing R1b does not mean being "Celtic" and being R1a M458 does not mean being proud Polish Slav. It is older. It is good for rough understanding of population genetics but not for deeper thinking of our origins. We should look at ourselves from above not from inside, as we are practicing now.

 

[Tomenable]

I'm the opposite of Tomenable...I have a R1a-M458 Y haplogroup and zero Eastern Europe autosomal...also have a Polish last name, since my biological grandfather left the family when my Dad was six and Nana made her three sons take their new stepdad's last name. Looking at that Thirty Years' War map, the area where my male line comes from (northern Wurttemberg), my God, 66% or more killed! The poor Palatinate...

How exactly do you know that you have "zero Eastern Europe" autosomal DNA?

As for me, all tests give me mixed autosomal signatures, Eastern and Western.

But I have not tried 23andMe (and probably I won't, since v4 was a better chip and they replaced it with a worse product for the same price - if it is still possible to order v4 then I'm willing to order it). In any case 23andMe claims to report your ancestry only from the last 500 years, so scoring 0% Eastern at 23andMe does not mean that you have zero Eastern, only that you have zero Eastern after year 1500 AD.

The best tool for "racial admixtures" (rather than "geographical ancestry") is GEDmatch.

 

[Angela]

I don't think it's at all unusual for South-central and South-west Europeans to score no East European. The highest I've ever gotten for that specific component is .63 on a Eurogenes calculator, and he sets them up to show more East Euro.

That's in addition to my genealogical tree, which tells me I don't have any in the last almost 600 years.

 

[Tomenable]

If you talk about Dodecad V3 then this component called East Euro there is actually specifically Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian).

That's why even Russians score more West Euro than East Euro in this calculator, because they are predominantly Slavic.

Here is my result for example:

Population
East_European 28.79
West_European 42.87
Mediterranean 18.88
Neo_African -
West_Asian 8.71
South_Asian 0.41
Northeast_Asian -
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian 0.29
Northwest_African -
Palaeo_African -

And here is my mother's:

Population
East_European 27.04
West_European 44.37
Mediterranean 17.65
Neo_African -
West_Asian 6.87
South_Asian 0.91
Northeast_Asian 0.38
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian 2.52
Northwest_African 0.26
Palaeo_African -

=====

The highest I have ever seen is this Lithuanian politician and genetic genealogist: M434508

He scores:

Population
East_European 67.60
West_European 24.71
Mediterranean 7.69
Neo_African -
West_Asian -
South_Asian -
Northeast_Asian -
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian -
Northwest_African -
Palaeo_African -

I think I can post the kit number because he is a public figure, but remove it if you prefer.

 

[Tomenable]

Eurogenes calculator, and he sets them up to show more East Euro.

I don't think so.

On the other hand, many Russians and Belarusians score more West Euro than East Euro on Dodecad V3 (made by Dienekes). And I don't know what is his Polish reference in Oracle, but 90% of Poles don't get Polish in Single Population Sharing there, so his Polish average is "off".

I for example get Slovenian in Dodecad V3 as my 1st population (while in all of Eurogenes calculators I get Polish 1st). Poles from Suwałki (North-Eastern Poland) do get Polish in Dodecad V3, but in Eurogenes they get Lithuanian (and rightly so, because they are mostly Slavicized Balts).

Suwałki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwałki

This "Baltic genetic signature" in Poles extends also over the region of Mazovia, as far as Warsaw at least.

Poles from Warsaw are also used in all genetic studies, because it is our capital city.

But a more representative of "typical Pole" would actually be a sample from Cracow, because Southern Poland is the most densely populated part of Poland (and it has been like this since the 1700s - before that, in the 1500s, Kuyavia in North-Central Poland had been the most densely populated part).

=====

My Oracle for Dodecad V3 (Mixed Mode is similar to my DNA Land "North Slavic" and "NW Euro" percentages):

Single Population Sharing:

# Population (source) Distance
1 Slovenian (Xing) 7.95
2 Hungarians (Behar) 8.29
3 German (Dodecad) 14.39
4 Polish (Dodecad) 16.77
5 Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) 17.19
6 FIN (1000Genomes) 17.89
7 N._European (Xing) 19.68
8 Argyll (1000 Genomes) 19.79
9 CEU (HapMap) 19.84
10 Balkans (Dodecad) 20.07
11 Orcadian (HGDP) 20.77
12 Finnish (Dodecad) 20.83
13 Orkney (1000 Genomes) 20.91
14 Russian (Dodecad) 22.3
15 Romanians_14 (Behar) 24.15
16 Russian (HGDP) 25.69
17 Swedish (Dodecad) 26.02
18 Mixed_Germanic (Dodecad) 26.24
19 French (Dodecad) 27.36
20 French (HGDP) 27.74

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 60.5% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 39.5% Mixed_Germanic (Dodecad) @ 2.09
2 53.6% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 46.4% Argyll (1000 Genomes) @ 2.27
3 53.4% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 46.6% N._European (Xing) @ 2.5
4 62.1% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 37.9% Dutch (Dodecad) @ 2.64
5 54.8% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 45.2% Orcadian (HGDP) @ 2.68
6 53.6% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 46.4% CEU (HapMap) @ 2.71
7 55% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 45% Orkney (1000 Genomes) @ 2.73
8 54.6% German (Dodecad) + 45.4% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) @ 2.76
9 63.7% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 36.3% Kent (1000 Genomes) @ 2.85
10 65.5% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 34.5% Cornwall (1000 Genomes) @ 3.06
11 61.2% Polish (Dodecad) + 38.8% Mixed_Germanic (Dodecad) @ 3.06
12 52% Mixed_Germanic (Dodecad) + 48% Belorussian (Behar) @ 3.12
13 65% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 35% British (Dodecad) @ 3.24
14 53% CEU (HapMap) + 47% Russian (Dodecad) @ 3.29
15 54.1% Polish (Dodecad) + 45.9% N._European (Xing) @ 3.3
16 59.2% Argyll (1000 Genomes) + 40.8% Belorussian (Behar) @ 3.3
17 59.3% N._European (Xing) + 40.7% Belorussian (Behar) @ 3.32
18 64.6% Mixed_Slav (Dodecad) + 35.4% British_Isles (Dodecad) @ 3.34
19 54.3% Polish (Dodecad) + 45.7% Argyll (1000 Genomes) @ 3.35
20 74.2% Slovenian (Xing) + 25.8% Finnish (Dodecad) @ 3.52

 

[Angela]

If you talk about Dodecad V3 then this component called East Euro there is actually specifically Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian).

That's why even Russians score more West Euro than East Euro in this calculator, because they are predominantly Slavic.

Here is my result for example:

Population
East_European 28.79
West_European 42.87
Mediterranean 18.88
Neo_African -
West_Asian 8.71
South_Asian 0.41
Northeast_Asian -
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian 0.29
Northwest_African -
Palaeo_African -

And here is my mother's:

Population
East_European 27.04
West_European 44.37
Mediterranean 17.65
Neo_African -
West_Asian 6.87
South_Asian 0.91
Northeast_Asian 0.38
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian 2.52
Northwest_African 0.26
Palaeo_African -

=====

The highest I have ever seen is this Lithuanian politician and genetic genealogist: M434508

He scores:

Population
East_European 67.60
West_European 24.71
Mediterranean 7.69
Neo_African -
West_Asian -
South_Asian -
Northeast_Asian -
Southeast_Asian -
East_African -
Southwest_Asian -
Northwest_African -
Palaeo_African -

I think I can post the kit number because he is a public figure, but remove it if you prefer.

Tomenable, I specifically said: that specific cluster and in an EUROGENES calculator, to wit, Eurogenes EU test.

 

[Tomenable]

Anyway. As you probably know I'm helping Maciamo with regions for One Family One World Project, specifically Polish Regions:

https://www.eupedia.com/images/design/Poland_regional_DNA_project.png

I did a lot of research before drawing the borders of these 15 regions that are currently there (actually we are thinking about updating it to 18, but these 3 additional regions would be very small, and the number of samples they have to date is far from impressive, so maybe there is no point in creating more regions if it will be hard to obtain even few good samples from each). Borders of regions are drawn along year 1900 county borders. Here is the proposed update to 18 regions (new regions would be West Polesia, East Lusatia and Lublin Land split from Lesser Poland):

https://i.imgur.com/SgsPDFM.png - map shows pre-1914 county borders

I also calculated total population for each region down to county level around year 1900, as well as % of ethnic Polish population.

Every single region had substantial minorities, be it Jewish, German or other (East Slavic, Lithuanian, etc.).

4 regions were basically German-speaking with only small Polish minorities - Lower Silesia, Neumark, Pomerania and Oberland.

The remaining 11 regions can be considered predominantly Polish/Slavic (including Warmia-Masuria, but those Polish-speakers in Masuria were mostly Lutherans rather than Roman Catholics, and many of them were German-identified despite most likely being genetically Slavic).

The highest % of ethnic Poles was in the region of Lesser Poland - 86% of the total population.

Anyway, if we go by ethnic Polish population (numbers for around year 1900) only:

1. Western regions* had 4.1 million ethnic Poles
2. Southern regions** had 5.6 million ethnic Poles
3. North-East regions*** had 3.0 million ethnic Poles
4. Central Poland region had 1.0 million ethnic Poles

*Greater Poland, North Poland, Kashubia, Upper Silesia
**Lesser Poland, Polish Mountains and Red Ruthenia
***Masovia, Sudovia-Podlachia and Warmia-Masuria

So as I said, Southern Poland was the most densely populated. Despite this, all genetic studies (such as Behar's studies) collect autosomal DNA from North-East Poland. Which means that what we currently know about Polish genetics represents only some part of variation.

All in all, there were ca. 14 million ethnic Poles within present-day borders of Poland in year 1900. And 20 million in total in the world.

As you know we were divided between three Empires - Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian.

If we go by borders of empires, then the distribution of ethnic Polish population was as follows:

1. Russian Empire: ca. 9.9 million, including:

Within present-day Poland: 7.4 million
In the rest of the Empire: 2.5 million

2. German Empire: ca. 4.0 million, including:

Within present-day Poland: 3.6 million
Diaspora in West Germany: 0.4 million (this included huge Polish migration to Ruhrgebiet)

3. Austro-Hungarian Empire: ca. 3.8 million, including:

Within present-day Poland: 2.8 million
In the rest of the Empire: 1.0 million

So the Russian Empire had almost 10 million (7.4 million within present-day borders of Poland and 2.5 million mostly in what is now Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia), the German Empire had 4 million (3.6 within present-day Poland and 0.4 mostly in West Germany - particularly Ruhr Gebiet) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had 3.8 million (2.8 within present-day Southern Poland, and around 1 million elsewhere - mostly in what is now West Ukraine and Czech Silesia). The lines between what constituted an ethnic Pole and what constituted a Roman Catholic Belarusian or Lithuanian could be blurred in eastern regions, though - it depended on self-identity, national consciousness.

4. Outside of Europe (Polish Diaspora in 1900):

4a. The United States: ca. 1.9 million - this figure is from Wacław Kruszka, it includes only Roman Catholics
4b. South America: ca. 0.1 million
4c. Rest of the world: at least 0.3 million

Wacław Kruszka - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacław_Kruszka

=====

Well, there were also Polish communities in France, etc. I don't know how numerous they were back in year 1900.

Modern numbers can be found on Wikipedia (Polish Diaspora is estimated at 20-22 million, half of it in the USA):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_ethnic_groups#Ethnic_groups

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs#Population

 

[Tomenable]

BTW, what about Jewish samples for One Family One World Project?

I've heard that they are not accepting Jewish-admixed people for European Projects. Not sure if true.

They will probably launch a separate "Jewish Diaspora Project" later?

 

[Tomenable]

I specifically said: that specific cluster and in an EUROGENES calculator, to wit, Eurogenes EU test.

My results in Eurogenes EU test:

Population
SOUTH_BALTIC 29.06
EAST_EURO 17.12
NORTH-CENTRAL_EURO 20.50
ATLANTIC 15.83
WEST_MED 8.02
EAST_MED 5.29
WEST_ASIAN 4.17
MIDDLE_EASTERN -
SOUTH_ASIAN -
EAST_AFRICAN -
EAST_ASIAN -
SIBERIAN -
WEST_AFRICAN -

When you look at the Oracle Spreadsheet, this admixture peaks in Udmurts, who are a Finno-Ugric group. Average Udmurt has 32.37, Erzya 31.58, Komi 30.94, Selkup 28.91, East Finnish 27.81, North Russian 31.82.

South Baltic admixture looks actually more Slavic, and is even common in Ukraine (30.43 in the Spreadsheet).

 

[Tomenable]

Maybe when we actually get Ancient Slavic (I mean Migration Period Slavic) samples, it will be possible to design a calculator with Slavic admixture, just like JTest has Ashkenazi admixture.

But I'm not sure about it, Ashkenazi admixture in JTest was possible mainly because they are a bottlenecked population.

I don't think that Slavs are also so bottlenecked, even though you would expect it considering that they basically "emerged from nowhere" in the 6th century AD (indicating that their number was probably initially small and they were breeding fast during expansion).

We need ancient samples to get relatively "unmixed" Proto-Slavs because during expansion they assimilated populations.

Slavs also assimilated Balts, who had been genetically similar to begin with, so this assimilation might not be easily detectable in DNA.

 

[Angela]

The J test is ludicrously bad, imo. It's practically malpractice to leave it up at gedmatch.

 

[Tomenable]

The J test is ludicrously bad, imo. It's practically malpractice to leave it up at gedmatch.

Why do you think so?