You would therefore share a paternal haplogroup assignment with any male relative that you shared a direct paternal line with.Ī woman can infer her paternal haplogroup if a male relative on her paternal line has been genotyped by 23andMe.īecause both the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA change so little over generations, they are very informative about your ancient ancestry. For this reason, the Y chromosome is a reflection of your ancient paternal ancestry. So about 95 percent of the Y chromosome remains relatively intact across generations. The Y chromosome does undergo recombination with the X chromosome, but only does so at the ends. (You can find out more about this here.) This is why women will see this page is unavailable to them within their 23andMe account, but in a moment we’ll explain how women can determine their paternal haplogroup.įirst understanding a little bit more about the the Y chromosome is helpful. Therefore, unless you inherited a Y chromosome from your father, you will not have a paternal haplogroup assignment. The Y chromosome is the sex-determining chromosome for males, which men inherit from their fathers. The paternal haplogroup assignment is determined by defining variants in your Y Chromosome. It traces to East Asia and is also common among Han Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malaysians. In this case the person’s paternal haplogroup assignment is O3a3c1*. Now that we’ve looked at maternal haplogroups, we can turn our attention to paternal haplogroup assignments. In the case we’re looking at, his maternal haplogroup is one that is shared by many people, not only of Han Chinese ancestry, but also with many Polynesians, Native Americans, and Southeast Asians. And that maternal haplogroup traces back through the generations to a single mutation at a specific place and time. would all share the same maternal haplogroup as you. For example, you, your mother, your brother, your sister, your maternal aunt, your maternal grandmother, etc. Because your mitochondria is inherited directly from you mother and undergoes very little recombination, you will share the same maternal haplogroup with any relative you share a direct maternal line with. For this reason, your mitochondrial DNA does not recombine with other types of DNA. Unlike your other pieces of DNA, your mitochondrial DNA is the only type of DNA that is found outside of the nucleus. Everyone inherits their mitochondria from their mothers. Maternal haplogroups are determined by defining variants in your mitochondrial DNA. The ability to trace back a person’s maternal haplogroup back so far – more than 50,000 years in the case of B4’5 – has to do with how it is passed down to each of us from our mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and so on back in time. Recent migration patterns have altered the global distribution of this haplogroup, but that ancient history is written in his DNA and being able to read that and identify his maternal haplogroup connects him to that history. It has its own history where it broke off from B4’5 in Southeast Asia. Looking deeper into his results his maternal haplogroup is a subgroup of B4’5, specifically B5a1a. Or another way of looking at it is that descendants of his ancient maternal ancestor – a common ancestor he shares with many Native Americans – had crossed the Bering Land Bridge to populate the Americas. In this case, the individual shares his maternal haplogroup with many Native Americans because 12,000 years ago people migrated from Asia to Alaska, when sea levels were lower. All members of a haplogroup trace their ancestry back to a single individual. Each haplogroup describes individual branches – or closely related groups of branches – on the genetic family tree of all humans. This is where understanding a little bit about haplogroups is helpful in placing you and your ancestry in the broader context of human history. But his maternal haplogroup – B4’5 and more specifically subgroup B5a1a – is most commonly found among Native Americans of the U.S. In this case we’re using someone who is Asian, who has roots in Southeast Asia. So in the interest of helping you out, we will walk through an example of a maternal and paternal haplogroup assignment, and explain how knowing your haplogroups can place you in the human family tree and connect you to your ancestry. Many 23andMe customers that contact Customer Care are confused by their haplogroup assignments and what they actually mean.īut knowing your haplogroup, and how you can use it, can give you much more clarity about your own ancestry.