History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 212
GENETIC DIVERSITY IN FLEMISH Y-DNA
Guido Deboeck
Abstract
More than a million Americans are descendants of Flemish immigrants. Close to
400,000 Flemish immigrants settled between Michigan and Oregon in the late 19th and
early 20thcenturies. Flemish people also had major influences on the English, the
Scots, and the Irish.
Genetic genealogy is a relative young field that has made interesting discoveries
regarding surname relationships. Surname relationships are, however, dependant on
the origin of the surname, changes in spelling of surnames, interpretations and
adaptations
of
surnames
to
new
environments. In
contrast,
geographical DNA projects focus on a particular geographical area where people have
experienced a common history over time. The interweaving of history, conventional,
and genetic genealogy often produces a better picture of the evolution of a group of
people. A first step in this direction is to discover the main haplogroups present in a
particular population. This article focuses on refining the understanding of the
distribution of haplogroups among people with Flemish roots, creating a baseline for
the study of the mosaic of genetic diversity in Europe.
Address for correspondence: Guido Deboeck, [email protected]
Introduction
The ancestors of the Flemish originally came from Flanders, a region located in what
is today the northern part of Belgium. Flanders has an area of 5,221 square miles
(13,522 square km), roughly the size of Connecticut. The current population
of Flanders is slightly over 6 million, resulting in a population density of 886 per square
mile (342 per square km).
The history of Flanders and of the Flemish people in particular provides an interesting
background for the study of Flemish DNA that will lead to better understanding of the
mosaic of European DNA. By interweaving history, genealogy, and genetic
genealogy, part of this mosaic of Flemish DNAcan be revealed.
This paper starts with a brief historical overview of Flanders and the Flemish people,
and subsequently describes the datasets of Y-chromosome STRhaplotypes
assembled for the present study. Finally it provides the frequency distribution of the
major haplogroups and discusses how this is different from previously published
papers. The paper concludes by bringing together the origin of the main Ychromosome haplogroups found in the Flemish, and discusses their European
context. Portions of this article were previously published in "Flemish DNA &
Ancestry" (Deboeck, 2007).
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