Haplogroup J-M267 (J1)
J-M267 is the great lineage of Arabia and the Near East. Its P58 branch expanded with Semitic-speaking pastoralists and dominates the Arabian Peninsula today. Explore the branch in the full Y-DNA haplotree: sub-branches, defining variants and where its testers live. Free, no account needed.
Paternal branch
Live tester counts
Free · no account needed
Paternal line
J-M267
- Testers
- 36,272
- 5,202 on this exact branch
- Strongest today
- Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
- Formed
- Oldest man on this line
Origin and distribution of J-M267 (J1)
What is J-M267? It is haplogroup J1, the paternal signature of the arid Near East. Its major branch J-P58 expanded from the Zagros and Taurus region with early herders and later with Arabic and other Semitic-speaking populations, and it is the majority lineage of the Arabian Peninsula today.
- Where it expanded from
- The Zagros and Taurus mountain region shows the highest haplotype diversity for J-P58, while its frequency increases toward the peripheral Arabian Peninsula, the pattern expected of serial founder effects. Expansion time from 453 chromosomes is estimated at about 10,000 years.Source: The emergence of Y-chromosome haplogroup J1e among Arabic-speaking populations (2010)
- How it spread
- The first migration is placed at the onset of the Neolithic, paralleling rain-fed agriculture and semi-nomadic herding across the Fertile Crescent; later episodes carried pastoralists into arid habitats alongside the spread of Semitic-speaking populations.Source: The emergence of Y-chromosome haplogroup J1e among Arabic-speaking populations (2010)
- Its northern branches
- Older, non-P58 lines are concentrated in the eastern Caucasus, where paternal lineages track language and geography closely among peoples who never spoke a Semitic language.Source: Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region (2011)
- The priestly cluster
- Among 215 Cohanim sampled across Jewish communities, 46.1% carried the J-P58 branch, and an extended Cohen Modal Haplotype on that background predominates in both Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Cohanim while being absent in non-Jews.Source: Extended Y chromosome haplotypes resolve multiple and unique lineages of the Jewish priesthood (2009)
- Where it is common
- A majority of men in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, with large shares in Jordan, the Levant and North Africa, and high frequencies in parts of the eastern Caucasus.
- What Ancestrify reports
- The free Y-DNA Clade Finder places your paternal 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.
J-M267, haplogroup J1, is the paternal signature of the arid Near East. Born in the region between the Caucasus, the Zagros and the Levant, its dominant branch J-P58 rode the pastoralist expansions of the last five thousand years to become the majority lineage of the Arabian Peninsula: most men in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states carry it, as do large shares of Jordanians, Levantine Arabs and North Africans, carried west with the Arab expansions.
The lineage's older, non-P58 branches tell a different story: they are concentrated in the highlands of Dagestan and the eastern Caucasus, where J1 reaches some of its highest frequencies anywhere among peoples who never spoke a Semitic language, and appear in Europe's ancient record as far back as the Neolithic. J1 also carries one of genetic genealogy's most studied clusters: the Cohen Modal Haplotype lineage within P58, shared by many men with a tradition of priestly descent.
One line among many: your Y haplogroup traces a single paternal line, one ancestor per generation out of thousands, so it is a thread of deep ancestry, not an ethnicity and not a percentage of who you are. Two men in the same branch share a forefather, but the rest of their genomes can differ as much as any two strangers'.
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 a Y-DNA test and shared an origin. They describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
Saudi Arabia
6,451 · 51%
Iraq
1,102 · 8.7%
Yemen
1,033 · 8.2%
Kuwait
967 · 7.6%
Russia (Republic of Dagestan)
546 · 4.3%
Poland
473 · 3.7%
United Arab Emirates
467 · 3.7%
Russian Federation
445 · 3.5%
Plus 17,110 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.
Yemen
64%
Jordan
54%
Saudi Arabia
54%
What defines it
The changes on the Y chromosome that every man on this branch carries. Positions are on the GRCh38 reference.
Is this your line?
If you have tested with a consumer DNA company, your own branch is already in your raw data file. The free Clade 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 paternal haplogroup as an add-on, placed on this same tree beside your ancestry model.
Frequently asked questions
What is haplogroup J-M267 (J1)?
J-M267 is the great lineage of Arabia and the Near East. Its P58 branch expanded with Semitic-speaking pastoralists and dominates the Arabian Peninsula today. It is a branch of the Y-DNA tree: everyone in it inherits the same set of defining mutations from one shared forefather.
How do I find out if I belong to J-M267 (J1)?
If you have already tested with a consumer DNA company, the free Y-DNA Clade Finder reads a raw DNA export (23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage or a VCF) and places you on the tree at the resolution your file supports. It is free, and the file is discarded after analysis. A dedicated Y-DNA sequencing test resolves deeper branches than a genotyping chip can.
Does belonging to J-M267 (J1) make me descend from one people?
No. A haplogroup follows a single paternal 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 Y-DNA 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 Y-DNA test and shared an origin, so they describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
Keep exploring
Don't know your haplogroup yet? The free Y-DNA Clade Finder reads it from a raw DNA export. Or browse the whole tree in the Y-DNA Haplotree. Other major branches: