I was interested in finding out my wife’s mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA, so I tried to get results from her late mother’s test. The sample was apparently no longer good. I then tried to get results from my wife’s old test. This sample was also inadequate, so she took a new test.
My Wife’s Maternal Lineage
This is what I have for my wife’s maternal line:
It goes from Ellis to Daley to Rhynold to Sandwich. However, there is some ambiguity as the suggested father for Mary Sandwich is a Daly and the mother is a Snyder. Here is the 1891 Census for Crow Harbour, Guysborough, Nova Scotia:
This shows that Mary was born in Nova Scotia. It also has her father born in Ireland and mother born in Nova Scotia. The 1871 Census for the same place gives Mary’s origins as Irish, but that does not necessarily mean that she was born there:
I do see this record:
However, I assume that this George is the son of George Rhynold. The younger George was 22 in the 1891 Census. However, according to this genealogy at genealogy.com, the elder George did remarry:
The key here would be to find the records for St. Joseph’s Church, Port Felix.
Perhaps this is a hint:
This birth record indicates that the parents George Rainold, fisherman and Mary Sandwich were married in 1858 at White Haven:
Here is a different transcription of the same event:
However, I do not see the Landrich. The r in Landrich is clearly a w. That leaves the name as Landwich or Sandwich of which Sandwich is more probable. That seems to be the best I can do with the information I can find now.
The mtDNA
The results appear to be still coming in:
Let’s see if this is in SNP Tracker:
According to SNP Tracker, the connection is very old, going back to the Iron age and apparently ending up in the British Isles.
I wonder how this compares to my own mtDNA:
This did not work, perhaps it is too new, I had to choose my old designation of H5’36:
This is really old by comparison. This is quite a discrepancy from what FTDNA shows on their Time Tree:
This puts me clearly in the Roman Period.
Back to Marie:
Marie has one exact match and several two step matches. Perhaps a new SNP will form based on Marie’s one match.
When I choose the Discover Haplogroup Reports at FTDNA, I get this message:
I will write another Blog when these results are available.
Summary and Conclusions
- I was curioius as to what was going on with my wife’s mtDNA results. I had to change her password to check
- Marie is in the U category. H is most prevalent in the British Isles from what I understand which is what I have. However, U appears to be located in the British Isles at a very early date if I am interpreting SNP Tracker correctly.
- Marie has one exact match for her mtDNA. I wonder if that match will form a new group.
- I am also interested in seeing the Discover Reports when they are available.