A northern Eurasian lineage from Siberia to the Baltic
Haplogroup N, defined by M231, is a northern Eurasian lineage spread in a broad band from Siberia and the Russian Far East across to Finland and the Baltic. It is strongly associated with Uralic-speaking peoples and reaches high frequencies among several northern populations, making it a defining lineage of the far north of Eurasia.
Haplogroup N is distributed across the northern latitudes of Eurasia. It is very common among many Siberian populations and among Uralic-speaking peoples, and it reaches high frequencies in Finland and among the Baltic and northern Russian populations. Its east-to-west spread across the top of the continent is one of the clearest lineage clines in Eurasia.
Haplogroup N is generally thought to have originated in East Asia and to have spread northward and westward across northern Eurasia, reaching the Baltic comparatively recently in the deep timescale of Y-chromosome history. Its association with the expansion of Uralic-speaking populations is a recurring theme in studies of the lineage.
N divides into branches with distinct distributions across northern Eurasia. Particular sublineages are characteristic of Finnic and Baltic populations, others of Siberian groups, and the internal structure of the haplogroup has been used to trace the timing and direction of its spread across the region.
An N result points to northern Eurasian paternal ancestry, from Siberia to the Baltic. The subclade indicates where along that broad range your lineage sits, so downstream testing is the step that localises a result which otherwise spans a very wide territory.
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