Getting Started With the Haplogroup Reports

Haplogroup is the term scientists use to describe a group of mitochondrial or Y-chromosome sequences that are more closely related to one another than to other sequences. The term haplogroup is a combination of haplotype and group. In this context, haplotype refers either to the DNA sequence of one's mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from one's mother, or to the DNA sequence of one's Y chromosome, which is passed from fathers to their sons.

Due to their unusual pattern of inheritance, the mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome contain information about your maternal and paternal lines, respectively. But together, they make up less than 1% of all your DNA, and only represent a small fraction of your ancestry. Everyone can trace their maternal ancestry back to a single woman, but members of a mitochondrial (maternal) haplogroup can trace their maternal ancestry back to a more recent common ancestor, and the same applies to paternal ancestry and the Y chromosome for males.

The Haplogroup Report provides haplogroup assignments which allow you to trace your ancestry from your mother through her mother and beyond and, for men, from your father through his father and beyond.

A maternal haplogroup is a family of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that traces back to a single common ancestor. Geneticists use global haplogroup distributions to trace significant events in human prehistory, such as the migration of people to the Americas or the expansion of agriculture from the Middle East.

The Maternal Haplogroup Report is provided to both males and females. This haplogroup assignment is based on your mitochondrial DNA, which you inherited from your mother, who inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from her mother, and so on. Both males and females inherited their mitochondrial DNA, and therefore their maternal haplogroup, from their mother.

Paternal haplogroups are families of Y chromosomes that are defined by specific sets of shared mutations. Geneticists can use patterns of Y-chromosome variation to trace significant events in human prehistory, such as the migration of people to the Americas or the expansion of agriculture from the Middle East.

The Paternal Haplogroup Report is available for males*. This haplogroup assignment provides information about your Y-chromosome haplogroup, which we also call paternal haplogroup because it is passed down from fathers to their sons through the generations.

*Because females do not have Y chromosomes, they do not have paternal haplogroups. Females can connect with a father or brother to learn about their father’s haplogroup. Both males and females can still learn about their recent paternal ancestors in the Ancestry Composition Report. Learn more about the information available to both males and females.

Your haplogroup is a clue to your maternal or paternal ancestry. Humans migrated from eastern Africa to inhabit every continent on Earth except Antarctica over tens of thousands of years. The Haplogroup reports show the migration patterns of people with a given haplogroup. Before the age of European exploration ~500 years ago, people rarely moved between continents, so the report shows where people with a particular haplogroup lived for thousands of years.

As humans spread out geographically, they also diversified genetically. Your maternal haplogroup is assigned by identifying a set of variants in your mitochondrial DNA. If you are male, your paternal haplogroup is assigned by identifying a set of variants in your Y-chromosome DNA as well. When a variant arises in an individual and is passed down through the paternal or maternal lines, it will be present in living descendants. So by looking at the pattern of variants in present-day populations, geneticists can trace human genetic and migration history.

A haplogroup is a family of maternal or paternal lineages that descend from a common ancestor. The framework that is used to identify different haplogroups, and how they relate, is called a phylogenetic tree. The phylogenetic tree can be found by clicking on the Scientific Details tab.