What are 23andme's "Greek & Balkan" and "Eastern European" admixture?

[voloh]

And, for a South Slav , do the percentages of Greek & Balkan & Eastern European correspond to Slavic and pre-Slavic Dna?

23andMe_Balkans.jpg

23andMe_East_European.jpg

why yes, why not?

[Pan]

"The Balkan Peninsula is nestled in the southeastern corner of Europe and serves as the geographic and genetic crossroads between Europe and western Asia. Despite broad cultural and religious diversity, the people of the Balkans are genetically similar to one another, descending from early Mediterranean and Slavic peoples. Island Greeks lack this ancestral Slavic influence and are similar to southern Italians."

The last sentence regarding island Greeks got added very recently.

[Pan]

"Between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, Eastern Europe was heavily influenced by Imperial (and then Soviet) Russia, but the genetic heritage of Eastern Europe traces back to peoples living southeast of the Baltic Sea as well as to a more recent influx of Slavic-speaking peoples from north of the Black Sea. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, millions of Eastern Europeans migrated west in search of economic opportunity. In the United States, Eastern European ancestry is most common in the Midwest."

It is this excerpt that should answer your question regarding what Eastern European means 23andMe-wise: "Peoples living southeast of the Baltic Sea as well as ... a more recent influx of Slavic-speaking peoples from north of the Black Sea."

[voloh]

that's really vague... So Eastern European is a mix of Balts and "Black Sea Slavs"(Scytho-Sarmatians)? and Balkan is a mix of early Mediterraneans (Pelasgians?) and some "other Slavs" which are completely genetically distinct from the Black Sea Slavs? and they mashed those 4 groups into 2 groups?

when i look at my dna relatives from Croatia, those from sparsely populated areas get 0-5% Eastern European and the rest is Balkan, and those from densely populated ones get up to 30% Eastern European. which agrees well with that story that Slavs came to the valleys in the 7th century and the natives "ran to the hills"

so 23andme might be detecting something really interesting but they don't even know what it is.

[Stuvanè]

I have several genetic balkanic cousins ​​(and I myself present a small proportion of Greek-Balkan in my autosomal). From what I managed to understand this component is currently modeled on Albanian / Kosovar and Montenegrin samples. In practice, if you come from that area you can expect to receive around 99% of Greek-Balkan. It remains strong and primary in areas such as Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. It becomes a secondary component between Hungary and Slovenia. Given these data I'd consider this component the original nucleus of the Balkan element: I'dsay the ancient Illyrian / Thessalian substrate

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[td120]

There is something more to it. In many cases Balkan people with zero Eastern Europe on 23andme will show a good EE% on other platforms or Gedmatch. Something needs to be seriously tweaked there .

"This dataset includes people of Albanian, Bosnian and Herzegovinian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Macedonian, Maltese (!) , Montenegrin, Romanian, or Serbian ancestry. At this time, this dataset cannot be broken down further because the people in those regions mixed throughout history or have shared history, or we might not have had enough data to tell them apart. As we obtain more data, populations will become easier to distinguish, and we will be able to report on more populations in the Ancestry Composition report."

https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/...ce-Populations

https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/...tions#European

Checked my Croatian,Serbian,Bosnian and Albanian matches with four Grandparents from the resp.countries. Eastern European % ranges from 6 to 35% for the first three countries. Albanians are almost 99% Balkan/Greek.

P.S. It would be interesting to check how stable the component is thru the confidence levels . My 81.7% Greek&Balkan drops down to 65.9% at 70% Confidence level and to 39.9% at 90%(conservative) confidence level.

In the white papers 23andme admit to not being good at assigning some categories (like French and German). Balkan does not look stellar either.

[Tutkun Arnaut]

I have several genetic balkanic cousins ​​(and I myself present a small proportion of Greek-Balkan in my autosomal). From what I managed to understand this component is currently modeled on Albanian / Kosovar and Montenegrin samples. In practice, if you come from that area you can expect to receive around 99% of Greek-Balkan. It remains strong and primary in areas such as Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. It becomes a secondary component between Hungary and Slovenia. Given these data I'd consider this component the original nucleus of the Balkan element: I'dsay the ancient Illyrian / Thessalian substrate
I have seen Poles and Russians score 40































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I have seen Poles AND Russians score 40% Balkan. And slaves in the Balkans score like 70 to 80% Balkan so it got a strong hint of Slavic. I think MyHeretage got many flows. 23 and me needs more time to refine its algorithm but I think it will be the test to take

[voloh]

I have seen Poles AND Russians score 40% Balkan.

that's interesting. do you know their exact location? which part of Russia?