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The Belarusian people live east of Poland, southeast of Lithuania and Latvia, west of Russia, and north of Ukraine. Belarusians are closely related to their Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian neighbors.
The modern Belarusian language has been written in Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
50.98 (nearly 51) percent of Belarusian men possess the R1a Y-DNA haplogroup and its offshoots. This genetic type spread throughout many areas of eastern Europe with the migration of members of the Indo-Europeans from the Ukrainian-Russian steppe. A significant version is R1a1.
Other Y-DNA haplogroups found among Belarusians include G, I1a, I1b, and N3.
Alena Kushniarevich, Larysa Sivitskaya, Nina Danilenko, Richard Villems, and Oleg Davydenko. "Genetic portrait of modern Belarusians: mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome perspective." A poster presentation in HGM2008 Poster Abstracts: 3. Genome Variation Diversity and Evolution from HUGO's 13th Human Genome Meeting, Hyderabad, India, September 27-30, 2008. Abstract:
"To explore the genetic structure of modern Belarusians and to trace their paternal and maternal history the high resolution analysis of non-recombining portion of Y-chromosome (NRY) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism was performed. In total 576 NRYs and 292 mtDNAs were analyzed. Samples were selected from DNA-bank of native Belarusians on conditions that they: represent all six ethno geographical regions of present-day Belarus, descend from unrelated healthy individuals and allow the analysis of both sex-associated genetic loci. Analysis of NRY diversity was performed by hierarchical typing of 26 informative biallelic markers according to established phylogeny. Phylogenetic state of mtDNAs was determined by sequencing of HVSI region (16020-16400 nps) following RFLP analysis of coding region diagnostic sites. Revealed composition of paternal and maternal gene pools is typical for East Europeans. Distinctive features of mtDNA pool of Belarusians are: predominance of limited number of haplogroups, high diversity of maternal genetic lineages, and minor (3%) presence of Asiatic type of mtDNA (D-lineages). About 88% of mtDNA diversity is determined by R-descendents: family HV which includes haplogroup H (37%), HV-group (4%), V (6%), U-branch (23%) and cluster JT (17%). Paternal gene pool of Belarusians is characterized in its turn by domination of only three genetic lineages - haplogroups R1a (51%), I1b (16%) and Finno-Ugric haplogroup N3 (9%) covering thus about 76% of total Y-chromosome diversity; the rest falls to R1b, I1a, I1c and E, J lineages. Components of Y-chromosomal and mtDNA gene pools of modern Belarusians reflect multiple gene flows separated in time, dominating source of which was southern or south-eastern European region. Analysis of distribution of mtDNA and Y-chromosomal components among six subpopulations has revealed that genetically Belarusians are low structured population. A separation of subpopulations along the south-north line, which is demonstrated particularly in distribution of Y chromosomal lineages R1b, I1a and I1b, N3 and G-chromosomes, has been noted; east-west gradient is insignificant. In sense of mtDNA diversity Belarusians show relatively high level of homogeneity. Belarusians demonstrate the highest genetic affinity with two other Eastern Slavs - Russians and Ukrainians in context of their genetic history; presence of Finno-Ugric N3 chromosomes points to common genetic roots of Balts and East Slavs."
Be sure to visit our Ukrainians page for a study by Rebala, et al. (2007) that includes Belarusian samples from three areas in Belarus.
Here are two more studies that also, in part, discuss Belarusian DNA, including the R1a-R1a1 Y-DNA grouping:
