Haplogroup U6
U6 is North Africa's own maternal lineage, a deep back-migration from Eurasia, today strongest among Amazigh (Berber) populations and the old Canarian gene pool. 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
U6
- Testers
- 1,743
- 96 on this exact branch
- Strongest today
- Portugal, Spain, Cuba
- Oldest person on this line
Origin and distribution of U6
What is mtDNA haplogroup U6? It records a return journey: a Eurasian lineage that crossed back into North Africa and made the Maghreb its homeland. It is the most distinctive maternal marker of Amazigh populations and a large share of the indigenous Canarian gene pool.
- Its early expansion
- U6a1 has a coalescence age of roughly 20,000 to 22,000 years with its earliest inferred expansion in northwest Africa, coinciding with the flourishing of the Iberomaurusian culture. U6 and the M1 lineage it was long paired with expanded in non-overlapping phases.Source: Divorcing the Late Upper Palaeolithic demographic histories of mtDNA haplogroups M1 and U6 in Africa (2012)
- The population it belonged to
- The Iberomaurusian people of Taforalt in Morocco model as roughly two thirds Natufian-related and one third an African ancestry with no good ancient match, the deep layer beneath the Maghreb's later population history.Source: Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations (2018)
- The Canary Islands
- 48 ancient mitogenomes from 25 sites across the seven main islands carry U6 lineages including U6a1a1, U6a7a1, U6b and U6c1, alongside island-specific lineages whose coalescence dates match a colonisation in the first millennium CE.Source: Mitogenomes illuminate the origin and migration patterns of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands (2019)
- Where it is common
- Amazigh populations from Morocco to Libya above all, and at lower frequencies wherever North African ancestry travelled: Iberia, Sicily, the Sahel and the Atlantic diaspora.
- 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.
U6 records one of prehistory's great return journeys: a lineage of the Eurasian U family that crossed back into North Africa tens of thousands of years ago and made the Maghreb its homeland. Today it is the most distinctive maternal marker of Amazigh (Berber) populations from Morocco to Libya, was prominent among the Guanches (the indigenous Canary Islanders, whose lineages persist in the modern islands), and follows North African ancestry wherever it travelled: into Iberia, Sicily, the Sahel and, via the Atlantic diaspora, the Americas.
Its branches split the region's history finely: U6a is the broad Maghrebi and Saharan form, U6b includes the Canarian founder lines, U6c a rarer western pocket. In the ancient record, U6 individuals appear in the Upper Palaeolithic of Morocco, the Taforalt burials, placing the lineage in North Africa before farming reached it from either direction.
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
62 · 20%
France
57 · 18%
Spain
37 · 12%
England
30 · 9.7%
Canada
26 · 8.4%
Italy
23 · 7.4%
Portugal
23 · 7.4%
Sweden
18 · 5.8%
Plus 455 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.
Portugal
1 in 38 · 2.7%
Spain
1 in 42 · 2.4%
Cuba
1 in 54 · 1.9%
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 U6?
U6 is North Africa's own maternal lineage, a deep back-migration from Eurasia, today strongest among Amazigh (Berber) populations and the old Canarian gene pool. 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 U6?
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 U6 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: