Reference
Haplogroups, explained plainly
A haplogroup is a branch on one of two family trees: the one traced through mothers, and the one traced through fathers. Both can be read from an ordinary home DNA test, and both are widely misunderstood.
The two lines, and why only these two
Most of your DNA is shuffled every generation, which makes it impossible to follow one strand back through time. Two pieces escape the shuffle. Mitochondrial DNA passes from a mother to all her children unchanged, so it traces your mother’s mother’s mother and so on. The Y chromosome passes from father to son, so it traces the male line. Because neither recombines, mutations pile up in a strict order, and that order is a tree every living person sits on a branch of.
What a haplogroup is not
It is not your ancestry. Go back ten generations and you had over a thousand ancestors; your maternal haplogroup describes exactly one of them, and your paternal line one more. Two people with the same haplogroup can have almost nothing else in common. It is one thread, not the cloth.
About the dates
Every age below is a coalescence estimate: when all living carriers of a branch last shared a common ancestor. They come from mutation rates that are still argued over, so published figures for the same branch can differ by thirty per cent. Read them as eras, not dates.
Maternal lines, mitochondrial DNA
Anyone can read their maternal line, whatever their sex.
| Haplogroup | Where it arose | When |
|---|---|---|
| L0 | Southern and East Africa | about 150,000 to 170,000 years ago |
| L1 | Central and West Africa | about 140,000 to 150,000 years ago |
| L2 | West and Central Africa | about 90,000 to 100,000 years ago |
| L3 | East Africa | about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago |
| M | South and East Asia | about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago |
| N | Southwest Asia | about 55,000 to 60,000 years ago |
| R | Southwest Asia | about 55,000 years ago |
| U | Southwest Asia, then Europe | about 45,000 to 50,000 years ago |
| U5 | Europe | about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago |
| U6 | North Africa | about 30,000 years ago |
| K | The Near East | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| HV | The Near East and the Caucasus | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| H | The Near East, then Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| V | Southwest Europe | about 12,000 to 15,000 years ago |
| J | The Near East | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| T | The Near East | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| X | The Near East, Europe, and North America | about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| I | The Near East and Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| W | The Near East, Europe and South Asia | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| A | East Asia, then the Americas | about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago |
| B | East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Americas | about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago |
| C | Siberia, East Asia, the Americas | about 25,000 to 35,000 years ago |
| D | East Asia, Siberia, the Americas | about 25,000 to 35,000 years ago |
| F | East and Southeast Asia | about 40,000 years ago |
| G | Northeast Asia | about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| Z | Siberia and northeastern Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| P | Australia and New Guinea | about 45,000 years ago |
| Q | New Guinea and Melanesia | about 40,000 years ago |
Paternal lines, the Y chromosome
Only people with a Y chromosome carry this line. If you do not have one, your father’s line can still be read from a brother, father or paternal cousin’s test.
| Haplogroup | Where it arose | When |
|---|---|---|
| A | Africa | about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago |
| B | Central and East Africa | about 100,000 to 130,000 years ago |
| E | Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean | about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago |
| E1b1a | West, Central and Southern Africa | about 30,000 years ago |
| E1b1b | East and North Africa, the Near East, southern Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| C | Asia, Oceania and the Americas | about 50,000 years ago |
| D | Tibet, Japan and the Andaman Islands | about 50,000 years ago |
| G | The Caucasus and Anatolia | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| I | Europe | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| I1 | Scandinavia and northern Europe | about 4,600 years ago for every man alive who carries it |
| I2 | The Balkans, Sardinia and eastern Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| J | The Near East | about 30,000 years ago |
| J1 | Arabia, the Near East, North Africa | about 20,000 years ago |
| J2 | Anatolia, the Caucasus, the Mediterranean, South Asia | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| N | Siberia, the Urals, northeastern Europe | about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago |
| O | East and Southeast Asia | about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago |
| Q | Siberia, then the Americas | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| R | Central Asia, then Europe and South Asia | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| R1a | Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia | about 20,000 years ago |
| R1b | Western Europe | about 20,000 years ago |
| R1b1a1a2 | Europe | about 6,000 years ago |
| T | The Near East, East Africa, the Mediterranean | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| L | South Asia and the Near East | about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago |
| H | South Asia | about 40,000 to 45,000 years ago |
Which one is yours?
If you have taken a DNA test, the answer is already in the file you were given. Load it here and both lines are traced fork by fork, in your browser, without the file being uploaded anywhere.
Read my file