According to a new research, the migration of Romani people, which are now the Europe's largest minority group, started from Northern India to the continent much earlier than previous thought.

The research has shown that the migration began some 1,500 years ago. The group was often referred to as "gypsies" in the 16th century due to the conception that they have come from Egypt. Researchers found evidence that Romani population first arrived through the Balkans and migrated further into inland Europe about 900 years ago.

The new study published yesterday in the scientific journal Cell Biology has confirmed that the racial minority comes from India. European researchers collected genetic samples from 152 Romani people from 13 different groups in Europe

The research team studied the DNA of gypsies drawn from various countries and compared it to the DNA of people from Europe, India and Central Asian countries through the genome-wide sequencing technique. They found that the group had origins in India. The researchers said that the 11 million Romani can all be traced back to a single group that left India about 1500 years ago from the south Asian nation's north western region.

David Comas, of the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain and co-author of the new paper said, "They constitute an important fraction of the European population, but their marginalized situation in many countries also seems to have affected their visibility in scientific studies."