Haplogroups vs Haplotypes

One of the ways geneticists and genealogists help to distinguish the deep origins of a person’s maternal and paternal ancestors who lived thousands of years ago is through the identification of their haplogroup and haplotype. Basically, a haplogroup is roughly equivalent to a person’s nation of origin. A haplotype is a subset of a haplogroup and helps to further drill down the nation and region of a person’s origin. Because some haplotypes are more common in certain haplogroups, it is many times possible to predict what a person’s haplogroup is based on what their haplotype is. Haplotype is actually short for “haploid genotype” and refers to the combination of genetic markers in multiple locations in a single chromosome. If two people match exactly on all of the markers they have had tested, they share the same haplotype and are related. The degree of relatedness can be predicted based on the number of markers that have been tested. The more markers tested and compared, the better and more accurate the prediction. Haplogroups to refer to the single nucleotide polymorphism mutations (SNPs) that determine the clade that a collection of haplotypes belong. Man originated in Africa and has migrated throughout the world since that time. As that migration has taken place, man has changed and adapted to his surroundings over thousands of years. For example, in places where there is limited sun, man’s skin has lightened. To better protect against the cold of northern regions, man’s build has become more stocky and insulated. These changes have created different genetic compositions. For identification purposes, these different genetic compositions are known as haplogroups. Haplotypes are subsets of various haplogroups. How Many Haplogroups and Haplotypes are there? All Y-chromosomal haplogroups can trace their common lineage from a Y-chromosomal Adam who is the most recent patrineal ancestor of all people living today. It is believed he lived about 236,000 years ago. He was not the only man living at that time, he simply was the only man with an unbroken male line of descent to the present day. He is known as the “most common recent ancestor” which is sometimes designated as MCRA. From this common ancestor, it is possible to create a family tree of sorts of the human race known as a Phylogenetic tree of Y-DNA haplogroups. The human Y-chromosome accumulates about two mutations per generation. Y-DNA haplogroups share hundreds or even thousands of mutations that are unique to each haplogroup. The International Society of Genetic Geneaology has created the following Phylogenetic tree of the Y-DNA haplogroups. Because of continuing research, the structure of the Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree changes quite often to keep updated with the latest developments in the field. The tree is chronological in nature with the oldest haplogroups appearing at the top of the tree, and the most recently created haplogroups appearing at the bottom of the tree. For example, Haplogroup A’s possible time of origin is estimated at 236,000 years ago. Haplogroup F is believed to have originated about 65,900 years ago in Eurasia. And Haplogroup R possibly originated about 31,900 years ago in Asia. Within each of these broad haplogroups, there are sub-haplogroups with various designations as well that have developed through ongoing genetic mutations. For example, Haplogroup R-M420 (R1a) is believed to have originated 22,800 years ago in Eurasia. Haplogroup E-M191 is thought to have originated about 7,400 years ago in East Africa while more recently, Haplogroup R1a-M458 originated out of Eastern Europe approximately 4,700 years ago. #NikolaysGeneticsLessons #WhatAreHaplogroups #HumanGeneticsExplained #Haplogroups #Race #humanGenetics #Genetics #HaplogroupsExplained #PaternalHaplgroup #MaternalHaplogroup #HaplogroupR1b #HaplogroupH #HaplogroupR1a #Ethnicity #Language #Religion #DNA #HumanDna #23andme #23andmeTestResults #GeneticHistory #HumanMigration #mtDNA #Ydna #GeneticsOfEurope #GeneticsOfAfrica #AfricanGenetics #GeneticsOfIndia #HumanEvolution #DNATest #geneticTest #populations #GenealogyDNATest #familyTree #dnaTestKit #paternityTest