Technical Abstract: Simple sequence repeat (SSR) or microsatellite markers have many applications in breeding and genetic studies of plants, including fingerprinting of cultivars and investigations of genetic diversity, and therefore provide information for better management of germplasm collections. They are repeatable, co-dominant, highly polymorphic, and technically simple to use. We developed more than 150 SSR markers for hazelnut (Corylus avellana) and characterized them using a diverse set of 50 accessions. Some hazelnut SSR loci amplify other genera in the Betulaceae. In this study we identify two sets of a dozen markers each that are useful for fingerprinting hazelnut accessions. Loci were chosen based on high heterozygosity, PIC values, low frequency of null alleles, coverage of the hazelnut genome, and ease of scoring. The number of alleles per locus for these 24 primers ranged from 5-16. Polymorphic information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.50 to 0.87. Most loci segregated 1:1, 1:2:1 or 1:1:1:1 in our mapping population, allowing us to assign them to a linkage group.