Haplogroup HV
HV is the Near Eastern trunk from which Europe's H and V descend — still carried in its own right from Anatolia and Iran to the Balkans. Explore the branch in the full mtDNA haplotree — sub-branches, defining variants and where its testers live. Free, no account needed.
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Origin and distribution of HV
HV is the mother lineage of Europe's most common maternal haplogroups: both H (forty per cent of Europeans) and V branch from it. The trunk itself arose in the Near East around the last glacial maximum, and lines labelled simply 'HV' — descendants that never joined H or V — remain most common in that homeland: Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran and Mesopotamia, thinning westward through the Balkans and Italy.
An HV result on a consumer chip carries a testable nuance: because chips read few mitochondrial positions, some kits genuinely on an H branch resolve only to HV, the coarser but correct claim. Full sequencing usually settles it. In the ancient record HV appears from Neolithic Anatolia onward, the quiet trunk behind Europe's biggest maternal success story.
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.
Frequently asked questions
What is haplogroup HV?
HV is the Near Eastern trunk from which Europe's H and V descend — still carried in its own right from Anatolia and Iran to the Balkans. 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 HV?
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 — free, and the file is discarded after analysis. A dedicated mtDNA sequencing test resolves deeper branches than a genotyping chip can.
Does belonging to HV 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 live browser below shows the branch inside the full mtDNA haplotree of tested lineages — its sub-branches, the variants that define them, 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: