Haplogroups Most Recent Common Ancestor

Recently on WikiTree someone asked me ‘Dumb question, What are Haplogroups?’

Thinking it was not a dumb question at all I gave the following answer.

A haplogroup is a grouping of common  patrilineal or matrilineal lines who share a common ancestor.  The main haplogroups are divided by letter, and smaller sub-divisions by letter and number.  For example H is a very large group, H1 is a subgroup of H, H1a is a subgroup of H1, and so on.   The further you narrow it down the closer in years the common ancestor is. Continue reading “Haplogroups Most Recent Common Ancestor”