DNA Migration Map
Pick an explorer below to watch their family’s oldest journey — out of Africa and across the world — trace itself across the map. Or upload your own AncestryDNA raw data to trace yours.
New to these words? Open the Field Guide ↓1
Pick an explorer — or upload your own DNA
Try one of these — each is a real or typical person from a different part of the world:
or upload your own
2
Your ancestors’ journey
Upload a file or pick a sample to trace a route.
Tip: after the route draws, hover or tap each stop to retrace the journey yourself.
Explorer’s Field Guide
New words? Tap any term to open it.
Haplogroupyour family’s branch
Picture every human as a leaf on one giant tree. A haplogroup is the big branch your family sits on — a group of people who all share the same deep ancestor. This app finds your branch on your mother’s side.
Cladea branch + all its twigs
A clade is one branch and every twig and leaf growing out of it. Every haplogroup is a clade — so “U” is a clade, and the smaller “K” growing off it is a clade too.
mtDNAmom’s tiny time capsule
Mitochondrial DNA is a little loop of DNA passed down only from mother to child — moms give it to all their kids. It barely changes over thousands of years, which makes it a perfect trail of breadcrumbs back through your foremothers.
Markers & mutationstiny spelling changes
Once in a great while, a single letter of DNA gets copied differently — amutation. These little changes get handed down, so each branch ends up with its own set of “marker” changes that give it away.
Allelewhich letter you have
DNA is spelled with just four letters — A, C, G and T. An allele is simply which of those letters you have at a given spot. When a branch’s marker says the allele changed from A to G, it means members carry the “G” version there.
Reading “A11467G”what the letters mean
It’s a tiny recipe: at spot 11467 in the DNA, the letter changed fromA to G. The number is the position; the two letters are before → after. Carry the G there, and you’re on that branch.
A11467G = position 11467, A → G
A11467G = position 11467, A → G
rCRSthe measuring stick
To spot changes, scientists compare everyone to one standard sequence called therCRS — like a reference ruler. Fun twist: the ruler itself happens to be a haplogroup H sequence!
Backbonebig branches only
The tree has a few huge limbs and thousands of tiny twigs. This app reads atbackbone level — it names the big limb (like H or U), not the smallest twig. A full DNA test digs much, much deeper.
The path (mt-MRCA › HV › H)your trail down the tree
That trail of names is your route down the tree, from the root to your branch.mt-MRCA is the very root — nicknamed “Mitochondrial Eve,” the one woman every maternal line traces back to, in Africa around 150,000–200,000 years ago.
Confidence %how sure we are
How sure we are of your branch — based on how many of that branch’s marker changes we actually found in your file. More matches = higher confidence.
Who is Bryan Sykes?the clan-mother names
Bryan Sykes was a geneticist who, in his book The Seven Daughters of Eve, gave friendly first names to seven of Europe’s big maternal branches — Helena for H, Jasmine for J, Katrine for K, and so on — imagining each as a “clan mother.” The names aren’t official science, but they’re a fun way to remember the branches.
Meet the branches
Each colored trail on the map is one of these branches.
Maternal (mtDNA)
H— Europe’s maternal superstar
HV— at Europe’s threshold
V— the southwestern spark
U— Europe’s Paleolithic pioneer
K— riding the farming revolution
JT— the Near Eastern crossroads
J— child of the Fertile Crescent
T— from the wheat fields of the Near East
W— between East and West
X— the transatlantic mystery
I— the northern wanderer
M— the great eastern journey
D— across the far north
Paternal (Y-DNA)
R-M269— Western Europe’s superstar
R1a— the eastern powerhouse
I1— the Nordic line
I2— Europe’s first hunters
J1— the Arabian line
J2— builder of the first cities
E1b1a— the Bantu line
E1b1b— around the Mediterranean
G— the first farmers
N— the northern wanderer
Q— the American pioneer
O2— the great East Asian line
O1a— the seafarers
T— the far-flung line
L— the South Asian line
C— the ancient explorer
With thanks
This app stands on the shoulders of scientists and open-data communities who mapped the human family tree and shared their work freely:
- PhyloTree — the mtDNA tree by Mannis van Oven & Manfred Kayser (Build 17), the source of our maternal-line markers.phylotree.org
- ISOGG Y-SNP Index — the Y-chromosome tree from the International Society of Genetic Genealogy.isogg.org
- yhaplo — 23andMe’s open-source Y-haplogroup caller, whose SNP table gives our Y positions.github.com/23andMe/yhaplo
- Natural Earth & world-atlas — the public-domain geometry behind the world map.naturalearthdata.com
- Bryan Sykes — for the friendly “clan mother” names inThe Seven Daughters of Eve.
Not affiliated with, or endorsed by, AncestryDNA or 23andMe. “AncestryDNA” and “23andMe” are trademarks of their respective owners.