Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins allows you to view your Y-DNA matches’ ancestral information.

The following information is displayed:

  • Country – This is the paternal country of origin as reported by the individual customer.
  • Match Total – This is the total number of matches for a specific country.
  • Country Total – This is the total number of people with Y-Chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) results from the country of origin in the Family Tree DNA Y-DNA database.
  • Percentage – This is the percentage from the country of origin compared to the total number from that country in the database, i.e., the Match Total column divided by the Country Total column.
  • Comment – This is additional information reported by the customer such as a social, religious, or ethnic group. Where more than one match from a country has provided the same comment, the number of matches is shown beside the comment. For example, someone with matches in Germany might have Baden-Württemberg (2) and Schleswig-Holstein (7).

Note: Family Tree DNA uses the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 3166 for country names.

Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins Page Questions

On The Y-DNA – Matches page, relevant matches are shown. Depending on the testing level, these are:

  • Y-DNA12 Matches (exact matches only)*
  • Y-DNA25 Matches (up to 2 differences)
  • Y-DNA37 Matches (up to 4 differences)
  • Y-DNA67 Matches (up to 7 differences)
  • Y-DNA111 Matches (up to 10 differences)

* For Y-DNA12 matches, 11 out of 12 matches are only shown when both customers belong to the same group project.

The Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins page of your myFTDNA account compares you against our entire Y-DNA results database. This includes customers you see on your Y-DNA – Matches page, research participants from academic studies, customers who have not signed the release form, and customers who have chosen not to compare against the entire database on that number of markers. As a result, you may have more entries on the Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins page than the Y-DNA – Matches page.

The Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins page of your myFTDNA account lists the country of origin reported to us by the people that you match. This country of origin is meant to be the country from which your paternal ancestors came before recent migrations to the Americas. We have recently added a United States (Native American) choice to help users tell the difference between a true Native American ancestry and a colonial American ancestry. You should treat the United States entries as “Unknown Origin” unless the Y-DNA test results indicate Native American ancestry on your paternal line.

Note: Family Tree DNA uses the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 3166 for country names.

When you have one of the more common Western European Y-Chromosome DNA STR haplotypes, the results will include matches from many European countries on your Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins page. This happens most often at the Y-DNA12 level of testing. As at this level your matches may date to a common ancestor several thousands of years in the past, the DNA signature has had time to spread throughout a large region or a continent during historic migration events.

Testing additional markers by upgrading to the Y-DNA37, Y-DNA67, or Y-DNA111 test will confine your matches to those who are more recently related. This will also reduce the number of locations to those that are relevant.

Note: As the Y-DNA111 is a relatively new test, relevant matches may not be available until more people test at this level.

Your information is not included in the table on the Y-DNA – Ancestral Origins page for your own myFTDNA account. The table on this page is a comparison of your results against others in the database. It lets you see what others with similar results to you entered for their country of origin. If you do not see your ancestor’s country of origin listed, then you are the only person with your DNA signature from that country in our database. Depending on the level of uniqueness of your results you may see more or less information hinting about your paternal or maternal country or origin. As the database grows, there are increasing chances of giving better hints about the ancestral country of origin.

The Y-DNA – Haplogroup Origins page displays the haplogroup and origins for your exact and near matches. Due to evolutionary convergence, you may see multiple haplogroups that are near matches.