The role of the Vlax Roma in shaping the European Romani maternal genetic history.

The Roma are comprised of many founder groups of common Indian origins but different socio-cultural characteristics. The Vlax Roma are one of the founder Roma populations characterized by a period of bondage in the historic Romanian principalities, and by the archaic Romanian language. Demographic history suggests different migration routes of Roma populations, especially after their arrival in Mesopotamia and the eastern boundary of the Byzantine Empire.

Y-STR genetic diversity of Croatian (Bayash) Roma.

Seventeen Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) (DYS19, DYS385, DYS389I, DYS398II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635, GATA H4.1) were typed in DNA samples from 146 unrelated adult Romani Bayash men from eastern and northwestern Croatia. Analysed Croatian Bayash Romani population represents an example of genetically homogenous population characterised by low levels of haplotype diversity and unique haplotype ratio as well as sharing of the same most frequent (founding) haplotype and its close derivatives by more than one third of the analyzed men.