My DNA Test Results - Mother's side

My mitochondrial,DNA test results have arrived. First, my mother's mother was from Haplogroup H, which is the group that populated most of Europe.


A complete definition of this Haplogroup is :

Specific mitochondrial haplogroups are typically found in different regions of the world, and this is due to unique population histories. In the process of spreading around the world, many populations—with their special mitochondrial haplogroups—became isolated, and specific haplogroups concentrated in geographic regions. Today, we have identified certain haplogroups that originated in Africa, Europe, Asia, the islands of the Pacific, the Americas, and even particular ethnic groups. Of course, haplogroups that are specific to one region are sometimes found in another, but this is due to recent migration.

Mitochondrial haplogroup H is a predominantly European haplogroup that participated in a population expansion beginning approximately 20,000 years ago. Today, about 30% of all mitochondrial lineages in Europe are classified as haplogroup H. It is rather uniformly distributed throughout Europe suggesting a major role in the peopling of Europe, and descendant lineages of the original haplogroup H appear in the Near East as a result of migration. Future work will better resolve the distribution and historical characteristics of this haplogroup.

My matches

When mito DNA is tested, you are asked if you want to share results and email addresses with those people with whom you have a match, if any exist. I signed a release form and was pleased to find that there were seven matches to my DNA. In short, seven other people tested have enough of the same genetic makeup as I do, to establish that we share a common female ancestor at some point in the last 52 generations.

Of my seven matches, one was from unknown origins, one was from England and the other five were from Ireland. My Irish heritage on my mother's side is safe for now!

I was also able to upload my information to another website that seeks matches for specific mito DNA.Mitosearch allows you to upload your information and compare to other DNA results uploaded by others. This would take into account that several companies are doing this testing. I also searched this site for matches to my mito DNA after I uploaded my data. Here I found 50 matches. However, I have three mutations in my DNA and there were only three other people of the fifty that matched all three. The other forty-seven people matched two of the three.

Of the three, one also matched my other hypervariables correctly, and I had an email contact address for this person. So I sent an email to this long lost cousin to see if we can shake our family trees and see who we have that matches.

This was a wealth of information, so much that it will take quite a while to digest and require some new blog entries. And my father's side results won't be in until April 1. Now that's the Irish for you!