I know Ephraim mixed in heavily among the North countries, but Nordics are not wholly of Shem, Abraham, and Jacob. Even Abraham married a Japhethite, as well as a Hamite and Shemite. Joseph, who leaders of the modern Church claim to be predominantly of, married a Egyptian pagan named after a Syrian (northwest Semitic) goddess.
Japheth's tribe had the lightest skins of the tribes of Noah's family, and probably the progenitor of Europeans and lighter-skinned east Asians (Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, to name a few). Japheth means "to enlarge" ("I will enlarge Japheth". etc.) so he is likely the most widespread progenitor of the human family. Indo-European tongues spread across the globe.
Ashkenazi Jews call themselves that because Germany was called Ashkenaz by Jewish people, which was Gomer's son, who was in turn Japheth's son. The north countries were predominantly Gomer and Tiras to the west and Magog and Meshech to the east; with Javan taking the Mediterranean lands of Spain, Greece, and Italy; and the Indo-Aryans from Madai.
I don't know how accurate this is, but heres a list of Indo-Europeans connected to Japheth:
1. Javan (Greece, Romans, Romance -- French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese)
2. Magog (Scythians, Slavs, Russians, Bulgarians, Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, Croatians)
3. Madai (Indians & Iranic: Medes, Persians, Afghans, Kurds)
4. Tubal (South of Black Sea)
5. Tiras (Thracians, Teutons, Germans, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Jutes)
6. Meshech (Russia)
7. Gomer (Celtic)
This is from
http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGham.htm
Another one is found here:
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0110.htm
Meshech may be who the ancient city of Moscow is named after.
Interesting excerpt from Wikipedia on Tiras:
"Some have suggested that Tiras was worshipped by his descendants as Thuras, or Thor, the god of thunder. The earliest Norse sagas name Thor as an ancestral chieftain, and trace his origins to Thrace."
There are many similarities between the so called ancestral gods and names listed in the patriarchs of the Bible. Since they lived very long lives and evidently had some superior capabilities, added to the fact that they most likely believed in exaltation of human ancestors, it was probably only natural it would morph into treating them as gods.
Obviously some tribes mixed. Moses 8 says that Shem and Japheth had the same mother and father (Noah), so there probably was little difference between original Semites and Japhethites genetically. Ham is mentioned as marrying "Egyptus", and his mother is mysteriously not given in Moses 8. There is also a strange 42-year gap between Japheth and Shem, while only a 8 year gap between Ham and Shem. Did Noah have sons (or more likely, daughters) that were not mentioned, but went on the Ark? Hindus claim the flood patriarch had well more that 3 sons.
While some claim the flood wasn't global, it surely spread across the earth in the form of ancient tradition:
http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html
http://www.israelect.com/reference/Will ... e_Land.htm
(the last link says the Himalayas, not the Caucasus, were the mountains Noah's Ark landed on.)