Haplogroup T2
T2 came west from the Near East with the Neolithic, a farming-era maternal lineage now spread from Anatolia across all of Europe. Explore the branch in the full mtDNA haplotree: sub-branches, defining variants and where its testers live. Free, no account needed.
Maternal branch
Live tester counts
Free · no account needed
Maternal line
T2
- Testers
- 30,837
- 8,627 on this exact branch
- Strongest today
- Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium
- Oldest person on this line
Origin and distribution of T2
What is mtDNA haplogroup T2? It is the larger European wing of haplogroup T, a Near Eastern lineage present both in the Late Glacial dispersals into Europe and in the continent's first farming villages. It sits at a few per cent almost everywhere rather than dominating anywhere.
- When it came west
- Haplogroups J and T carry a substantial, perhaps predominant, Late Glacial signal of dispersal from Near Eastern refugia, about 19,000 to 12,000 years ago, rather than a purely Neolithic one.Source: Mitochondrial DNA Signals of Late Glacial Recolonization of Europe from Near Eastern Refugia (2012)
- Its farming record
- Central Europe's early farmers of the Linear Pottery culture carried T2 among a distinct set of maternal lines, with N1a, K and J, where the hunter-gatherers before them carried only U lineages.Source: Ancient DNA reveals key stages in the formation of central European mitochondrial genetic diversity (2013)
- Its Canarian record
- Among 48 ancient mitogenomes from 25 sites across the seven main Canary Islands, T2c1d3 is one of the lineages whose distribution is restricted to central North Africa.Source: Mitogenomes illuminate the origin and migration patterns of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands (2019)
- Where it is common
- A few per cent across Europe: T2b is the common western European form, T2a leans Mediterranean and Near Eastern, and T2e carries a notable Sephardic Jewish cluster.
- Why its branches matter
- T2 has many well-dated twigs, several young enough to anchor a documented maternal pedigree to a named medieval region, which is unusual for a lineage that is nowhere frequent.
- What Ancestrify reports
- The free mtDNA Haplogroup Finder places your maternal line on this branch from a raw DNA export, at the resolution your file supports. Ancestry proportions come from the Ancient Ancestry (qpAdm) and Ancestry Map (Global25) reports, never from a haplogroup.
T2 is the larger European wing of haplogroup T, a lineage that formed in the Near East and entered Europe in the very first farming generations. T2 women were buried in Anatolian and LBK villages nine thousand years ago, and the branch has been part of the continent's maternal fabric ever since, typically a few per cent everywhere rather than dominant anywhere.
Its sub-branches split the geography finely: T2b is the common Western European form (frequent in Britain, the Low Countries and Iberia), T2a leans Mediterranean and Near Eastern, T2e carries a notable Sephardic Jewish cluster. That density of well-dated branches makes T2 a favourite for deep genealogy: several of its twigs are young enough to anchor a documented maternal pedigree to a named medieval region.
One line among many: your mtDNA haplogroup traces a single maternal line, mother to mother into deep time, so it is a thread of ancestry, not an ethnicity and not a percentage of who you are. Two people in the same branch share a foremother; the rest of their genomes are their own story.
The line through time
Each branch on this line from the root of the tree, oldest first.
Where testers are found
Counts of people who took an mtDNA test and shared an origin. They describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
United States
1,577 · 24%
England
1,036 · 16%
Germany
836 · 13%
Ireland
745 · 11%
Sweden
626 · 9.4%
France
349 · 5.2%
Scotland
342 · 5.1%
United Kingdom
334 · 5.0%
Plus 9,566 testers who gave no country. Shares are of testers with a known country.
Where this branch runs strongest
The share of each country's testers who sit on this branch.
Switzerland
1 in 8 · 12%
Denmark
1 in 10 · 9.8%
Belgium
1 in 11 · 9.1%
What defines it
The changes in the mitochondrial genome that every person on this branch carries. Positions are on the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence.
Is this your line?
If you have tested with a consumer DNA company, your own maternal branch is already in your raw data file. The free mtDNA Haplogroup Finder reads it and shows you where you sit on this tree.
Find my branch, freePrefer it read for you? The Ancient Ancestry report can carry your maternal haplogroup as an add-on, placed on this same tree beside your ancestry model, when your file holds enough mitochondrial markers.
Frequently asked questions
What is haplogroup T2?
T2 came west from the Near East with the Neolithic, a farming-era maternal lineage now spread from Anatolia across all of Europe. It is a branch of the mtDNA tree: everyone in it inherits the same set of defining mutations from one shared foremother.
How do I find out if I belong to T2?
If you have already tested with a consumer DNA company, the free mtDNA Haplogroup Finder reads a raw DNA export and places you on the tree at the resolution your file supports. It is free, and the file is discarded after analysis. A dedicated mtDNA sequencing test resolves deeper branches than a genotyping chip can.
Does belonging to T2 make me related to one people?
No. A haplogroup follows a single maternal line, one ancestor per generation, while the rest of your ancestry doubles every generation back. It is a deep-time thread, not an ethnicity, and two members of the same branch can otherwise be as genetically different as any two strangers.
What does this page's tree data show?
The branch view on this page shows the branch inside the full mtDNA haplotree of tested lineages: the line it descends from, the branches below it, the variants that define it, and the countries its testers report. Counts reflect people who have taken a mtDNA test and shared an origin, so they describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
Keep exploring
Don't know your haplogroup yet? The free mtDNA Haplogroup Finder reads it from a raw DNA export. Or browse the whole tree in the mtDNA Haplotree. Other major branches: