A Y-haplogroup is a branch of the human paternal-line family tree, defined by a shared set of tiny inherited marker changes on the Y-chromosome. Every man alive descends from a single Y-chromosome ancestor who lived in Africa about 235,000 years ago, and the tree has branched thousands of times since. Your terminal haplogroup is the deepest, most specific branch we can place you on — like R-M269 (Western European), I1 (Nordic), or N-Z4762 (Northern Eurasian/Uralic).
What’s a Y-haplogroup, exactly?
What a Y-haplogroup is — a branch of the paternal-line family tree defined by inherited Y-chromosome markers.