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A marker on the map is one published Y-DNA or mtDNA test, pinned at the birthplace of its earliest known ancestor. What becomes public is the haplogroup, the test type, surnames on a Y-DNA marker, ancestor notes, and the manager’s display name and contact information.

The only name published is your account display name, and it sits next to genetic data on a public map. A display name like Jane D. is fine, and so is a pseudonym such as Smith of London. No name is verified.

Sign in with Google, complete your profile, then fill in the marker form. You can publish Y-DNA markers, mtDNA markers, or both. Haplogroup is chosen from the AtlasDNA tree with a picker: start with a name or SNP from the report and pick the matching clade. Paternal-line surnames are optional on Y-DNA, at most ten. Write the ancestor’s place in the notes.

Choose these when your laboratory product is not in the list. Intermediate means a broader haplogroup — the kind of result typical of autosomal tests or limited panels, such as MyHeritage, 23&me, Ancestry, FTDNA/Family Finder, FTDNA/STR, or FTDNA/MtDna. Refined means a deeper, more precise placement on the tree — the kind of result typical of full Y sequencing or full mitochondrial sequencing, such as FTDNA/BigY or FTDNA/MtFull.

On every screen that shows a published haplogroup, the name is a link. It opens FamilyTreeDNA Discover in a new window, on the Y-DNA or mtDNA tree that matches the marker.

The trees are merged from FamilyTreeDNA and YFull. Credits for both sources are on About.

The filter on the map is one kind at a time — Y-DNA or mtDNA. The filter icon beside the haplogroup on a marker card opens this filter with that haplogroup already selected. Leave haplogroup on All for every marker of that kind, or pick a clade to include it and all of its subclades. With a clade selected, Intermediate superclades default to on: they add Intermediate tests on ancestor haplogroups of that clade; refined tests on those ancestors stay hidden. On Y-DNA you may enter one surname prefix; a marker matches when at least one of its surnames starts with that prefix. Kind, clade, Intermediate and surname combine. The address bar keeps the filter so you can share it.

A marker sits at the birthplace of its earliest known ancestor. If the birthplace is unknown, place it at the earliest place that ancestor appears in the records and say so in the ancestor notes.

A short note is a good note. For a paternal line, an example is: William Smith, b. 1734, d. 1798, Yorkshire. For a maternal line, partial knowledge is enough: Maternal line documented in St Martin parish from the 1780s.

Open the marker card, then the manager’s name. Contact information is optional; when it is published, it is shown only after a short check. There is no messaging on the site.

On a marker card you manage, choose Edit. You can also open My markers to edit or delete a marker. Open Profile settings to export your data or delete your account — that removes every marker you published from the public map immediately. Use Report a problem if someone else’s data needs taking down.

If something in the site is broken and it does not involve anyone on the map, you can open a public GitHub issue from Report a problem. Do not include names, haplogroups, coordinates, e-mail addresses or card links there.