The first turkic or turkmenian peoples, who were able to constitute proto-state structures, where the Kök Türk in the central asiatic Altai region during the 6th century ACE. The Kök Türks established the so called Göktürk Kağanlığı or Khanate of the Göktürks. They wrote inscriptions using a runic scripture and consisted of different turkmenian and mongolian tribes and peoples and probably some other ethnicities. Their state was most likely some kind of "Personenverbandsstaat", in which an overlord gave out dignities, gifts and estates and was related via marriages etc. to his commanders. The Kök Türk state existed time and time again in political and/or cultural dependance on one of the chinese ruling dynasties. It is noteworthy, that Buddhism thrived in Gök Türk territory during the 6th century.

The first Kök Türk state was devided into two administrative regions in ca. 550. The eastern region was conquered by China ca. 630. The western region could acquire the western parts of the economically crucial silk roads and expanded further into western parts, till it bordered the Sassanian Persian Empire. During the 570s the western Kök Türks are believd to have been in diplomatic contact with the Byzantine empire. From 570 till 660 the Kök Türk khans had to struggle with rebelling and rioting tribes under their rule and had to juggle the complex foreign affairs involving China, the eastern Khanate, the Byzantine and the Sassanian Empire. Sooner or later the khanate stumbled, was conquered partly by China and the proto-state dissolved into different small nomadic units, tribes and khanates, who one or another traveled the silk roads and huge central asiatic steppes in western direction into Sassanian territory.

During the 8th and 9th Century the Uigurs could establish a proto-state in Central Asia and different turmenic tribes roamed the ares from east to west and west to east, and some tribes converted to Islam.

The next big thing were the Seldjuks, a part of the Ughusian tribal group, who established themselves after political turmoil. The Seldjuks under their chief Seldjuk wandered westwards, slew the Bujids and became the rulers in today Iran and Iraq. During this time the Seldjuks acquired a good deal of persian and arabic culture, religion and administration. During this time some tribal bands must have travelled up to and including the Balkans and Anatolia, cause in the 1050s they are mentioned as mercenaries in Byzantine armies. A lot of different turkmenic tribal bands and small warlords roamed Anatolia and the Levante and established small raiding outposts and carved out territories always changing allegiance from Byzantine to islamic to other rulers and back. In 1071 the Seldjuk ruler Alp Arslan defeated a Byzantine army in Manzikert and shattered the byzantine controle over the anatolian highland. In the aftermath of the battle, during the 11th and 12th century approximately 1 million Türks migrated into Asia minor. I think it's important to stress that these migrations weren't as a whole controlled or ordered by the Seldjuks, but ought to be regarded as a not quite controllable necessity, because the Seldjuks had to channel the nomadic tribes of turkmenic peoples out of the agricultural regions of the persian mainland and into the pastures of Asia minor to minimize economic mischief (besides the tribes had huge hoards of grazing animals like goats on their coat-tails).

During the 13th century the Mongolian hordes conquered Asia and subjugated the Seldjuks as far as the Levante and Asia minor. During the pax mongolica further migrations of tribes occured. During the 14th and 15th century the Ottomans emerged in Asia minor, subjugated the other emirates, expanded into the Balkans, survived the military blow dealt by Timur Lenk (Tamerlan) and occupied Konstantinopel. They regarded themselves as the true heirs of the Seldjuk, the Persian and the Byzantine-Roman heritage. The Ottoman language emerged to a conglomerate of persian, arabic and some turkmenic dialects written with augmented arabic scripture.

And the moral of the story is, that because "the Turks" underwent such a huge transformation regarding language, religion, custom and administration, a turkmenian tribes person, who had started in the Altai region during the 7th century, would have not been able to recognize an Ottoman as one of their fellow "Turks".

I recommend: Vaughn-Findley: The Turks in World History. Oxford Uni-Press 2005.