It seems like researchers have found genetic traces of a Hungarian-speaking group in the area of the supposed ancestral home of Hungarians called Magna Hungaria. It is the place located in the region of the Ural Mountains and the Volga that Friar Julian visited to find Hungarians’ ancestral home.
An international research group including some Hungarian scientists may have found genetic traces of the Hungarians living in the East that Friar Julian reported about. The group of Estonian and Hungarian researchers published their findings in the Scientific Reports, according to Femina.
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Friar Julian travelled East at the beginning of the 13th century. His trip was a success as he ended up finding people who spoke Hungarian. However, the Mongol invasion hit the area soon after, and the tribes living in Central Asia assimilated mostly to the Bashkir group or to the Volga Tatars. For a while, it seemed like the Hungarian-speaking group also disappeared, but it now seems like they left some traces behind.
New findings: the common genetic component
The question Mathematician-Computer Scientist Endre Németh and Historian Tibor Fehér set out to answer is what the genetic connection to the group whose language is the closest to ours is like, namely, the Ob-Ugric people, especially the Mansi and Khanty groups. Richard Williams, the late director of the Estonian Academy, and Siiri Rootsit, the leading researcher of the common genetic component, as well as Helen Post, are also part of the research group.
In an earlier, 2013 research paper it was proven that the common genetic component is in the father’s Y chromosome, a component that does not appear in the genes any other Central European people. The next step was determining where this common genetic component appears, which could indicate what had happened to the groups of people possessing said genetic component. With the help of advanced technological devices and a thorough database, 46 Eurasian populations were examined.
What they found is that the paternal genetic component they identified earlier is most commonly found in Ob-Ugrik and Bashkir people as well as Hungarians and Volga Tatars.
Is this the group of Hungarians Friar Julian found?
Of course, further research is needed to really understand the findings, However, at this stage, it does seem like researchers found genetic traces of the Hungarians Friar Julian reported about.
Genetic connections and related languages have a complicated relationship, and one does not necessarily mean the other. However, examining both can get us closer to discovering more about the ancestry of Hungarians.