E-Mail
Commercially available gene tests that shed light on individual's origins are popular. They provide an estimate of the geographic regions where one's ancestors come from. To arrive at such an estimate, the genetic information of an individual is compared to information pertaining to reference groups collected from around the world.
The findings now made by researchers from the University of Helsinki, Aalto University and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare make it possible, for the first time, to make similar comparisons within Finland.
A research group at the University of Helsinki, headed by Associate Professor Matti Pirinen, who directed the study, has already earlier produced very detailed information on genetic structure in Finland. In the recently published study, reference groups were compiled from Finns with similar genetic ancestry and then applied to track the effects of migration in the 20th century on the population level.