Dr Thangaraj said that all males of a family or a population evolved from a single founder make and would possess the same Y chromosome.
Based on the genetic signature that exists on the Y chromosome, every male could be assigned to a specific group (haplogroup), enabling tracing of parental lineage using these signatures.
It was shown that the European Roma possessed the Y chromosome haplogroup Hlala.
The most recent common ancestor of European Roma was not identified because of the absence of similar data from their putative homeland, India.
“We have compared the worldwide phylogeographical (study of the historical processes that may be responsible for the contemporary geographic distributions of individuals) data for Indian Hlala haplotypes with Roma and concluded that Doma are most likely ancestral populations,” the scientist said.
