Paternal Haplogroup

You descend from a long line of male ancestors that can be traced back to eastern Africa over 275,000 years ago. These are the people of your paternal line, and your paternal haplogroup sheds light on their story.

Melvin, you belong to paternal haplogroup R-BY250.

As our ancestors ventured out of eastern Africa, they branched off in diverse groups that crossed and recrossed the globe over tens of thousands of years. Some of their migrations can be traced through haplogroups, families of lineages that descend from a common ancestor. Your paternal haplogroup can reveal the path followed by the men of your paternal line.

Migrations of Your Paternal Line

275,000 Years Ago

F-M89

76,000 Years Ago

K-M9

53,000 Years Ago

R-M207

35,000 Years Ago

R-M343

27,000 Years Ago

Haplogroup A

275,000 Years Ago

The stories of all of our paternal lines can be traced back over 275,000 years to just one man: the common ancestor of haplogroup A. Current evidence suggests he was one of thousands of men who lived in eastern Africa at the time. However, while his male-line descendants passed down their Y chromosomes generation after generation, the lineages from the other men died out. Over time his lineage alone gave rise to all other haplogroups that exist today.

R-M269

10,000

Years Ago

Origin and Migrations of Haplogroup R-M269

Your paternal line stems from a branch of R-M343 called R-M269, one of the most prolific paternal lineages across western Eurasia. R-M269 arose roughly 10,000 years ago, as the people of the Fertile Crescent domesticated plants and animals for the first time. Around 8,000 years ago, the first farmers and herders began to push east into Central Asia and north into the Caucasus Mountains. Some of them eventually reached the steppes above the Black and Caspian Seas. There, they lived as pastoral nomads, herding cattle and sheep across the grasslands, while their neighbors to the south developed yet another crucial technology in human history: bronze smelting. As bronze tools and weaponry spread north, a new steppe culture called the Yamnaya was born.

Around 5,000 years ago, perhaps triggered by a cold spell that made it difficult to feed their herds, Yamnaya men spilled east across Siberia and down into Central Asia. To the west, they pushed down into the Balkans and to central Europe, where they sought new pastures for their herds and metal deposits to support burgeoning Bronze Age commerce. Over time, their descendants spread from central Europe to the Atlantic coast, establishing new trade routes and an unprecedented level of cultural contact and exchange in western Europe.

The men from the steppes also outcompeted the local men as they went; their success is demonstrated in the overwhelming dominance of the R-M269 lineage in Europe. Over 80% of men in Ireland and Wales carry the haplogroup, as do over 60% of men along the Atlantic Coast from Spain to France. The frequency of R-M269 gradually decreases to the east, falling to about 30% in Germany, 20% in Poland, and 10-15% in Greece and Turkey. The haplogroup connects all these men to still others in the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia, where between 5 and 10% of men also bear the lineage.

R-BY250

< 10,000

Years Ago

Your paternal haplogroup, R-BY250, traces back to a man who lived less than 10,000 years ago.

That's nearly 400 generations ago! What happened between then and now? As researchers and citizen scientists discover more about your haplogroup, new details may be added to the story of your paternal line.

R-BY250

Today

R-BY250 is relatively common among 23andMe customers.

Today, you share your haplogroup with all the men who are paternal-line descendants of the common ancestor of R-BY250, including other 23andMe customers.

1 in 430

23andMe customers share your haplogroup assignment.

See references

You share a paternal-line ancestor with Niall of the Nine Hostages.

R-M269 common ancestor

10,000 years ago

The Uí Néill Dynasty

You

The spread of haplogroup R-M269 in northern Ireland and Scotland was likely aided by men like Niall of the Nine Hostages. Perhaps more myth than man, Niall of the Nine Hostages is said to have been a King of Tara in northwestern Ireland in the late 4th century C.E. His name comes from a tale of nine hostages that he held from the regions he ruled over. Though the legendary stories of his life may have been invented hundreds of years after he died, genetic evidence suggests that the Uí Néill dynasty, whose name means "descendants of Niall," did in fact trace back to just one man who bore a branch of haplogroup R-M269.

The Uí Néill ruled to various degrees as kings of Ireland from the 7th to the 11th century C.E. In the highly patriarchal society of medieval Ireland, their status allowed them to have outsized numbers of children and spread their paternal lineage each generation. In fact, researchers have estimated that between 2 and 3 million men with roots in north-west Ireland are paternal-line descendants of Niall.

See references

The Genetics of Paternal Haplogroups

· The Y Chromosome

· Paternal Inheritance

· Paternal Haplogroup Tree

· Tracing Male Migrations

· The Y Chromosome

Most of the DNA in your body is packaged into 23 pairs of chromosomes. The first 22 pairs are matching, meaning that they contain roughly the same DNA inherited from both parents. The 23rd pair is different because in males, the pair does not match. The chromosomes in this pair are known as "sex" chromosomes and they have different names: X and Y. Typically, females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y.

Your genetic sex is determined by which sex chromosome you inherited from your father. If you are genetically male, you received a copy of your father's Y chromosome along with a gene known as SRY (short for sex-determining region Y) that is important for male sexual development. If you are genetically female, you received a copy of the X chromosome from both of your parents.