Overview
N-Z1940 is a downstream branch within the N-Z1941 cluster of N-M178 and forms one of the characteristic Finnish N lineages. YFull age estimates place its origin around 1,700 years before present, roughly corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age to Migration Period in northern Europe. Modern distributions and project-based phylogenies associate N-Z1940 with lineages that expanded inside Finland and neighbouring regions during the first millennium CE, in parallel with the formation of early Finnic-speaking communities and the development of regional clan and settlement structures.:contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}
Geographic distribution
Samples assigned to N-Z1940 are heavily concentrated in Finland across Western Finland, Southern Finland, Eastern Finland, Oulu and Lapland provinces, with additional occurrences in Sweden (for example Värmland County) and northwestern Russia, particularly around Leningrad Oblast. This spatial pattern follows a northward and inland expansion from the Finnish south and southwest along water routes and forest corridors, and overlaps with historical settlement areas of Savonian and other eastern and central Finnish populations. Lower-frequency occurrences in Sweden and Russia likely reflect both medieval and more recent migration of Finnish and closely related groups.:contentReference[oaicite:11]{index=11}
Ancient DNA
- While N-Z1940 itself has not yet been widely reported in ancient DNA due to its young age and fine resolution, upstream clades N-Z1936, N-Z1934 and N-VL62 are present in Iron Age and medieval Finnish and Baltic contexts. This pattern indicates that the immediate ancestors of N-Z1940 already formed part of the established Finnic paternal gene pool by the first millennium CE, before the microclade differentiation that defines modern N-Z1940 lineages.:contentReference[oaicite:12]{index=12}
- Historical and genealogical reconstructions based on densely sampled modern N-Z1940 families connect many carriers to medieval and early modern settlements in eastern and central Finland, where they often appear among documented pioneer and expansion-era lineages. This is consistent with the estimated TMRCA and supports a scenario in which a limited number of founders within the N-Z1940 cluster experienced significant demographic success during the internal colonisation of Finnish inland regions.:contentReference[oaicite:13]{index=13}
- Ancient DNA from neighbouring regions of northeast Europe shows a broader continuity of N-M178-related haplogroups across the late Iron Age and Viking Age, tying the N-Z1940-bearing population to wider patterns of Uralic and Finnic dispersals, Scandinavian contacts and east–west trade networks that characterised the Baltic and northern forest zone during the last two millennia.:contentReference[oaicite:14]{index=14}
Phylogeny & subclades
On the YFull N tree, N-Z1940 is placed as a child of N-Z1941 within the N-VL62 branch of N-Z1933, with an estimated formation and TMRCA around 1,700 years ago. It has several identified downstream microclades, including BY*, Y* and FT* branches that exhibit strong Finnish and neighbouring regional affinities. In some project and summary trees designed for Finnish genealogy, N-Z1933 is described as a general Karelia–Savonia split, N-VL62 as a mixed Finnish–Saami contact zone, and N-Z1940 as one of the sub-branches moving further north and inland along riverine routes. This makes N-Z1940 an important component for fine-scale reconstructions of Finnish regional population history and for distinguishing different N-M178 founder events inside Finland.:contentReference[oaicite:15]{index=15}
- Basal N-Z1940* lineages in Finland
- N-Z4786 and related northern Finnish branches
- Additional N-Z1940-derived microclades represented in Finnish and neighbouring Swedish and Russian samples
Notes & context
N-Z1940 is especially valuable for Finnish surname and regional projects because it tends to form clear clusters associated with particular historical settlement zones. Within your atlas it can serve as one of the core examples of a young, regionally focused N-M178 branch that illustrates how a small number of Iron Age or early medieval founders can give rise to large modern paternal clusters within a relatively short time frame.
References & external links