The Roma people of Europe, often called Gypsies, are long thought to have originated in India because of similarities between Roma and Indian languages. But historical records are scanty.

Now a wide-ranging genomic study appears to confirm that the Roma came from a single group that left northwestern India about 1,500 years ago.

“Some genetic studies have also pointed to India before, but it was not clear what part of India,” said an author of the study, David Comas, an evolutionary biologist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

Dr. Comas led the study with Manfred Kayser from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They and other colleagues report their findings in a recent issue of Current Biology.