While Britain and the US record similar data, few others are comparable, says Danny Dorling, professor of humangeography in the University of Sheffield.
European populations have mixed so extensively with their neighbours that their genes mirror geography, rather than reflecting the paths of human migrations or language families.
By way of making conversation, I told the Russians that their former possession and near neighbor, Kazakhstan, was the momentous geography that hosted the great split of 90% of the human genome.