Romania

Romania

Romanian ǀ Central European

The Romanian people are an ethnic group native to Romania.  There are nearly 22 million Romanians who represent a quite compact Latin speaking population of Caucasoid (Caucasian) origin.  Romanians are an ethnic minority in several nearby countries including Italy (1.1 million), Spain (750,000), Germany (450,000), and Moldova (70,000).

In Romania, the largest ethnic minorities are the Hungarians, who make up 6.5% of the population and Gypsies, who make up 3.2% of the population. Formerly, Jews and Germans were important minorities, especially in Transylvania in the central and western part of the nation. Banat overlaps with Serbia and Hungary and is populated by Romanians, Serbs, Hungarians, Roma, Germans, Croats and other ethnicities.

Two of the ethnic minorities that live in Romania are the Szekler and Csango people.  Even though the Szekler people or Szekelys live within the boundaries of Romania in Transylvania, they have strong affinities with Hungarians, both ethnically and religiously.  The Csango people are also ethnically Hungarian despite living in Transylvania. Most are Roman Catholic.

There are four data sets that have been incorporated into DNA Consultants’ method.

• Romanian – Transylvanian – Szekler population data represent 257 unrelated Hungarian speaking individuals living in Csikszereda, Transylvania who were sampled in 2005 by the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Budapest, Hungary.
• Romanian – Transylvanian – Csango population data represent 220 unrelated individuals from Gyimes who were sampled in 2005 by the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Budapest, Hungary.
• Romanian – Transylvania – Banat population data represent 219 unrelated individuals born in the western part of Romania who were sampled in 2006 by the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timisoara, Romania.
• The Romanian population data represent DNA samples from 243 randomly selected, unrelated individuals of Caucasoid origin from Romania (Bucharest area). Members of the Romanian minorities (German, Hungarian, Romani) were excluded from the sample.  Samples were obtained by the National Institute of Legal Medicine in Bucharest, Romania, the Ludwig-Maximilians University, the University of Münster, and the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila.”

For more details on the Romanian population, see:

Wikipedia – Romanians;

Everyculture – Romania;

Nationmaster – Romania;

Photo: Nadia Comăneci, a Romanian gymnast, became the first woman to score a perfect 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event in 1976. Photo by Colicaranica via Wikimedia Commons.

Source publication: Romanian – Transylvanian – Szekler and Romanian – Transylvanian – Csango (population 302 and 303): Population genetic study in two Transylvanian populations using forensically informative autosomal and Y-chromosomal STR markers, FSI, p258-265.  Romanian – Transylvania – Banat (population 321): STR data for the 15 AmpFlSTR identifiler loci in the Western Romanian population, FSI, 2007, p73-75.  Romanian (population 445): Allele frequencies of thirteen STR loci in the Romanian population, FSI, 2004, 141, p171-174.

[Population 302, 303, 321, 445]