Below are a couple brief answers given by FamilyTreeDNA to the question "What is a haplogroup?"
"One way to think about haplogroups is as major branches on the family tree of Homo Sapiens. These haplogroup branches characterize the early migrations of population groups. As a result, haplogroups are usually associated with a geographic region. If haplogroups are the branches of the tree then the haplotypes represent the leaves of the tree. All of the haplotypes that belong to a particular haplogroup are leaves on the same branch. Both mtDNA and Y-DNA tests provide haplogroup information, but remember that the haplogroups nomenclature are different for each."
"The haplogroups are the major branches on the Y chromosome tree, defined single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which have accumulated along different lineages as Y chromosomes are passed from father to son over many generations. All haplogroups ultimately descend from a single Y chromosome carried by a male that lived in the distant past. The topology of the Y chromosome tree can be reconstructed by typing mutations in different human populations – as more SNPs are discovered (e.g., M254), the structure of the tree changes. Originally, the Y Chromosome Consortium (YCC) arbitrarily defined 18 haplogroups (A-R), which represent the major divisions of human diversity based on Y chromosome SNPs. Currently there are 20 haplogroups (A-T). In turn, each of these major haplogroups has numbered subgroups, or subclades, that are named with alternating letters and numbers."
Y-chromosome DNA Haplogroups of Man
Below is a table of yDNA Haplogroups, consisting of many sub-groups descending from what are known as "super-haplogroups", such as F, K, and P.
| Y Chromosomal Adam (Noah) | ||||||||||||||
| A | B | C | * | F | ||||||||||
| D | E | G | H | * | K | |||||||||
| I | J | L | M | * | P | |||||||||
| N | O | R | Q | |||||||||||
For more details about what Haplogroups are, click here to be directed to Wikipedia's portal on the subject.
Want to know more about "how" to be tested and find out your personal Haplogroup?
