Every man carries an unbroken line of fathers reaching back to one place on Earth.

YDNAmaps plots Y-DNA paternal lineages on a world map — pinned not to where people live now, but to the home village of their earliest known forefather. Explore how lineages spread, or trace your own.

A lineage, anchored to a place

The Y chromosome passes from father to son almost unchanged, so it records a single paternal line across centuries. Each dot on the map is one tested man's lineage, placed at the town his oldest known paternal ancestor came from. Colours group the major haplogroups — the branches of the human paternal tree. Together they show something no single family tree can: how paternal lineages cluster, migrate, and connect across regions.

Why it's different

Down to the town

Most haplogroup maps stop at the country. This one places lineages at the level of a village, because that's where family history actually lives.

Searchable by surname

Add the family name carried down your paternal line and others can find it. No other public map connects surnames to lineages this way.

Built by its members

Every pin is a real tested result submitted by a real person and checked before it appears. The map grows as the community grows.

Add your line in four steps

1. Test your Y-DNA Use any recognised service — FamilyTreeDNA, YSEQ, or similar — and note your haplogroup and kit number.
2. Find your ancestral town Pin the home of the earliest paternal ancestor you can name — a grandfather's grandfather, as far back as you know.
3. Submit for review Create a free account and add your result. An admin checks every entry before it goes live.
4. Join the map Your lineage appears alongside others from the same branch and region, and feeds the country statistics.