Category: Mitochondrial DNA

auaI had an email today from FTDNA notifying me that I have a new maternal mtDNA Haplogroup. This was welcome news, and ahead of what I was expecting.

I was H5’36 and now have the unwieldy Haplgroup of H5’388’449’450+4092. I am interested in the Match Tree:

There are now Haplogroups on either side of me which explains all the apostrophes in my Haplogroup. I believe the apostrophe is meant to account for an earlier Haplogroup being found after a later branch has been found. So previously, there was a very large Haplogroup called H5. When my Haplogroup was found upstream of H5, they named it H5’36 so H5 through H36 would not have to be renamed. Now above me (though apparently parallel to me – not upstream) are H450 and H388. The confusing part is that I do not see H449 in this screen shot.

More on the Match Time Tree

These are the people in my group. Notice that there are six lines. Two of those lines have a group. They are F2467090 and F8638614. I am in the first group with my first cousin Russel and Elisabeth. When I hover over the groupings, I get this message:

I think the purpose of the note is that, due to hte fast mutating markers, there can be a lot of variability in the results. This would include, I assume, back mutations. I note that these matches may not be necessarily closer, but then again, they may be. Certainly my first cousin is a closer match. I am not sure of Elisabeth. I should try to contact her. She gives her maternal line as coming from Austria, but has no information other than that on her genealogy. Austria seems to be an outlier as the most popular ancestors countries are Ireland and England. It would make sense for me to at least reach out to Elisabeth. I just wrote, but my match with her goes back to 2018, so a lot could have changed since then.

Here is a view of the Time Tree, but I do not see another H449 anwhere:

This is a good graphic showing how far my new Haplogroup moved in time from what it was previously (before 4,000 BCE).

mtDNA and YFull

In my previous Blogs, I looked at a new group I was in at Yfull along with Steve. Steve is four up from the bottom on the Match Time Tree:

Steve and I are at the end of a very long tree at YFull:

YFull has fewer tests than FTDNA. At YFull, Steve and I are simply H5’36e rather than H5’388’449’450’+4092 that FTDNA has. However, I believe that these two haplogroups are intended to represent the same thing. That holds true with the TMRCA of 1850 ybp at YFull compared with the 100 CE of FTDNA:

I would like to point out that even though the TMRCA or time to most recent common ancestor is 1850 years, obviously it is much less for my cousin and me. Our common ancestor was our maternal grandmother who was born in the hear 1900.

Summary and Conclusions

• I am glad that FTDNA decided to update thier mtDNA tree.
• This brought my branch of the tree over 4,000 years closer in time to the present.
• My particular Haplogroup is confusingly named and seems overly complicated
• I think that the new haplotrype clusters are interesting. I am in one with my first cousin and another person who has maternal ancestry from Austria. I have contacted her to see if can find out anything more about her ancestry. Austria is a long way from Sheffield, England.
• My new haplogroup has an differently named but equivalent haplogroup at YFull.

 

 

I have written two Blogs recently on my mtDNA. Currently my official Haplogroup at FTDNA is H5’36, but that will be changing. At YFull, my Haplogroup is H5’36e:

If I interpret YFull correctly, the SNP that defines H5’36e is G4092A. However, this screen shows that H5’36e has an additional SNP:

From this, I take it that C456T defines H5’36.

A Cool Screen at YFull

I like this one:

This is called MTree matches on the MReport. The interesting thing is that it appears to trace my line and my mother’s line back all the way to genetic Eve. Here is a closer view:

I don’t know what the different colors mean. There are green, red and grey SNPs.

Here is what SNP Tracker shows:

Here is some more information from SNP Tracker:

This shows the ancient 9,760 years before present for the most recent common ancestor for H5’36. According to YFull, this was reduced to 1850 years before present for H5’36e. It is also amazing how few mutations it takes to get from 155,000 years ago to 9,760 years ago. It looks like there were about 62 mutations. That appears to be about one mutation about every 2,000 years. That would make mtDNA not very useful for genealogical purposes. Also that would make the TMRCA date of 1850 years ago make sense.

What’s Next?

I expect that there will be branching under the present H5’36 which I thought would be H5’248, but now I see it is not:

Apparently H5’36 was replaced with H5’248 which now has been replaced by H5’388’449’450. I guess there is a lot going on in this part of the mtDNA world. I’m watching you FTDNA. The good news is that this shows progress in my part of the mtDNA tree. This seems like an awkward designation. Let’s see what is upstream of H5’388’449’450.

This goes right back to plain H.

This shows 4 named and 11 unnamed lineages from H5’388’449’450 if I am reading it correctly. I know that I am not H5, so that means that I must be H388’449, H450 or H5’388’449’450+4092. From a previous Blog, I see this from the FTDN site:

My take from this screen is that 4092 is an unnamed SNP as just a position is given. [However, see below.]

T310TC!! and G4092A

When I search for G4092A at mitomap.org, I see this:

Apparently, this is at location 4092 which is one of the lineages mentioned at FTDNA: H5’388’449’450+4092. That could mean that I am in the branch with the long name.

Here is something I note from FTDNA:

I assume that !! indicates a double back mutation. I could see where this could be problematic – especially as it occurs at the end of the line. What I would be interested in knowing is whether these two SNPs go together or if they might represent two separate branches on the mtDNA tree.

H5’388’449’450+4092

I am going to go out on a limb and assume that this is my new Haplogroup:

This shows the Imperial Age (100 CE) which seems consitent with YFull. Also, it looks like Ireland has the most chance of where the ancestors came from on the face of it.

I know that my female ancestor line goes back to England. Could that be my English flag? I do not know what F8638614 is – perhaps an initial grouping?

I see no British flag under H388’449:

However, I do see additional branching.

Here is H450:

Again, no UK. This tends to confirm that I belong in H5’388’449’450+4092.

Summary and Conclusions

• My intention in writing this third Blog on mtDNA was to tie up any loose ends I may have missed before FTDNA comes out with the new H branch of mtDNA
• While doing this I came upon an update of FTDNA’s MitoTree which gave me the new name of my current branch and gave a hint as to what my new Branch name would be
• Further snooping around shows that I would likely be in the long-named H5’388’449’450+4092
• Along the way, I learned quite a bit about mtDNA. I had heard recently about back mutations in mtDNA, but looking at my own makes it more real. 
• I appreciate FTDNA updating their mtDNA tree and am looking forward to further updates.

I was notified recently via the Facebook Page, Mitochondrial DNA for Genealogy that something big was happening. The big thing is that FTDNA has a new Beta Mitotree for Mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA. MtDNA is the DNA that women receive from their mother’s mother’s mother’s line and so on. This is passed down to daughters but also to one generation of sons.

My mtDNA: H5’36

I took the mtDNA Full Sequence test in 2014 so over 10 years ago. I am currently H5’36, but apparently all tht could change with the new Mitotree. Roberta Estes was involved with the new tree and wrote a good Blog on the Mitotree here. When I put my current Haplogroup into the FTDNA search, I get this message:

My guess is that either H5’36 is being shuffled around and/or being renamed in update or that the search is having trouble with the ‘ charachter. Instead, I will type in plain old H5:

Now I should point out that I am not H5, but H5’36. H5’36 predates H5 but was added in later as it was discovered after H5. The H5 story continues:

This screen shot is interesting as it shows H5’248 as the precursor to H5. I assume that H5’248 may be my new Haplogroup – or an equivalent to what I have now. It is interesting that these two Haplogroups have the same date of 4750 BCE – really old. The following timeline does not add much information, but just displays it in a different way:

Am I Now H5’248?

This is my assumption, but it is unclear why the change from H5’36 to H5’248 was necessary unless there is now a new naming protocol. All this seems to be laying the groundwork for new branches under H5’248. The next logical step is to do a search fo H5’248.

Again H5 is the popular descendant of H5’248 which I am not part of.

Here is another new Haplogroup called H5’248^. I guess there was a lot going on around 4800 BCE with my mom’s side mitochondrial DNA. Of interest above, is that H5’248 is the parent to H5, H248 and one yet unnamed lineage. As I am not H5, that means that I am likely H5’248, H248 or an unnamed lineage.

Here is another view:

I like this view because it shows over 1,000 H5 testers which I am not part of below me.

However, I would think that there would be more branching under H5’248. From a Blog I wrote 2 years ago, I had this possible tree:

This tree was based on information at YFull.

YFull’s MTree

Apparently, the chart I drew 2 years ago is now outdated. I am now H5’36e according to YFull’s MTree:

I am at the very bottom of the MTree for H:

Note that this is a new subclade:

I am wondering how much YFull’s MTree was responsible for FTDNA’s Mitotree. Here is my interpretation of what YFull’s MTree is showing now:

The over 1,000 testers under H5 obviously have many branches that I did not show. H5’36-b and H5’36b have some branching, but the other H5’36 branches have no further branching under them. I am a bit surprised how far behind FTDNA got in it’s Mitotree. I suppose that is why it may take a while for them to get up to speed.

FInally, I note from FTDNA:

Updates are rolling out over the next few weeks, with Haplogroup H coming after the other haplogroups since it is so large.

My Wife’s mtDNA

I tried to test my wife’s later mother’s mtDNA, but the test failed, so I am now trying to test my wife’s which is also an old sample. It turns out that this is an old sample also. I see from FTDNA:

Previously, for my Blogs, I had no category to sort my Blogs by Mitochondrial DNA. Now I have. I have also published two of my previous Blogs on Mitochondrial DNA. Here is the link to the more recent of the two Blogs.

One interesting  comment I wrote in my first Blog on Mitochondrial DNA from 2018 was that I was getting about one zero “Genetic Distance” mitochondrial DNA match per year. This seems to still hold true:

It looks like my first ‘perfect’ match was in 2014 and I have a total of 10 matches. I had one zero genetic distance match each year from 2019 through 2022.  My 2019 match was my cousin Rusty.

The Questions I am Trying to Answer

When writing, it is a good idea to have a purpose. I have these questions:

• How old is H5’36?
• How old are my zero matches likely to be?
• Where does the maternal genealogy for my matches lead me?
• Are there new developments for H5’36?

I don’t expect that I will answer all these questions definitively, but hope to get closer to answering these questions.

How Old is H5’36?

This should be an easy question, but I have a feeling that the answer is not easy. In my previous Blog, one answer I had was that a zero match with coding region would go back about 2200 years. I also uploaded my results to YFull and get this information:

If I interpret this correctly, then H5’36 goes back to about 6,000 BC. Based on those pieces of information, here is my interpretation. First, here are my matches:

Or, perhaps these are my matches with information on where there earliest maternal ancestor is from. Perhaps I could say:

• My genetic distance matches of three go back to 6,000 BC
• My exact matches go back to about 200 BC
• The other genetic distance matches would be spread out between. 8000 minus 2200 is 5800 years.  If I divide that by three I get roughly 1900 years. That means I could put the genetic distance of 1 at 2100 BC and a genetic distance of 2 at about 4,000 BC.

Having said that, here is a view of YFull’s MTree:

This indicates that H5’36 was formed 16,200 years ago and that my common ancestor 13,400 years ago. I will also hazard an explanation for this also. The way the tree shows, H5’36 is the paren Haplogroup to many, many other H5 Haplogroups. As the parent to those other groups, the age is 16,200 years old. However, where I am which is apparently under none of that branching, I am at 8,000 years old. Hey, what’s 8,000 years, give or take?

My sample is the one without the flag, so I’ll need to add England when I figure out to do that. I think that I read there is a way to do this but you have to set YFull to female. Now I’ve figured it out:

I was not seeing the tab here under My settings. I pushed the mtDNA tab and now can add my information. Hopefully I fixed that problem.

New Developments for H5’36

Seeing as I have looked at the MTree already, I’ll look at this issue next. It appears that new branching has taken place on the MTree which is maintained by YFull. YFull may be ahead of FTDNA or behing FTDNA depending on how much time FTDNA has been spending on a certain area. It appears that FTDNA has not done much with the mitochondrial DNA tree lately.

YFull’s MTree

YFull appears to be ahead of FTDNA in creating a mitochondrial DNA Tree. Here is the H5’36 Tree:

I had alluded to this earlier. Notice that my flag of England is now included. However, when I scrolled to the bottom of this tree, I see my H5’36 branches:

There is now an H5’36a, b, and c. It is difficult for me to see all this tree, so I will create a two level tree to see the structure:

This was actually quite simple. Most of the testers come in under H5. My understanding is that historically, H5’36 was discovered after H5 which is why it has a strange name.  Apparently, even though there are new branches under H5’36, I am still under the original branch.

Further, YFull’s MTree gives the mutation which identifies each of these branches:

[However, see later in the Blog for a corrected tree.]

My assumption is that I have mutation C456T and that I do not have the other four mutations. Here are my results:

Mutation C456T is in my HVR2 results. I don’t see the other mutations in my results.

SNP Tracker

SNP Tracker looks at both location and dates, so perhaps this online program will be helpful:

Based on SNP tracker, the location for H5’36 is around present day NW Germany. However, the date for this Haplogroup is very old:

However, this seems to be somewhat consistent with YFull – but YFull’s more recent date. Note that between England and Ireland, England barely edges out Ireland by 10 to 9. I am interested in the skull icon in the bottom row. So I click on that and get:

I then chose the United Kingdom sample from 3500 years ago and get this location:

This is possible a female ancestor or certainly a relative of a female ancestor. A sample of one is difficult to make assumptions from, but my feeling prior to this blog was that my mother’s maternal ancestors came from Scotland and that descendant went to both England and Ireland. This sample of one would appear to support my previous assumption.

FTDNA Haplotree

After much searching, I was able to find the FTDNA Haplotree:

Here is a slightly expanded view:

I don’t understand the difference between the light blue and the dark blue and I don’t understand the significance of the numbers. Also notice that the structure is somewhat different than YFull’s MTree. On the MTree, H36 is under H5’36-b:

This tells me that technically my depiction of the MTree is not corrrect. The MTree has a H5’36b and an H5’36-b:

Here I added H36 to reconcile YFull’s MTree with FTDNA’s Haplotree.

Where does the maternal genealogy for my matches lead me?

This is the final question and I have already touched upon it. SNP Tracker appears to take all the H5’36 results and averages out a location which is NW Germany. I believe that FTDNA is more precise in that it takes into account the Coding Region which is more specific.

Here is the Matches Map from FTDNA:

Of interest to me is that all matches are from the British Isles. The map is based on those who have reported an earliest maternal ancestor. There are 6 locations. Of these matches, the most interesting to me are the two red balloons in County Donegal. I wonder if these two are related to each other. Here are these two matches from my Match List:

Russell is my cousin Rusty. His ancestors are the same as my maternally and go back to the area North of Sheffield, York, England. Including my self, that accounts for four out of the 11 tests.

In addition, there is a tree icon in the above list. Steve, Russell, and Ann have family trees in addtion to the two perfect matches from the Matches Map.

Here is a spreadsheet that I would like to fill out:

Steve and His Maternal Genealogy

As Steve is the newest match, I would like to look at his genealogy. Here is how Steve reports his maternal ancestry at FTDNA:

Here are the details for Mary Chickey:

This would be more in general area of the British Isles that my maternal ancestry goes back to. It should be easy for me to recreate Steve’s tree:

Here is Florence in 1911:

Here is Hunslet outside of Leeds:

Florence was 2 in 1881. Her father was from Ireland, but I am tracing the mother’s side:

Florence’s mother Theresa was from Leeds. Here is where she was buried:

According to the 1861 Census, Theresa’s mother was born in Ireland:

Also of interest, Theresa’s younger sister was born in Birminham:

More on Maria

This appears to be Maria’s marriage in 1857 in Birmingham:

The transcription is Lamler, but I see the name as Lawler. Aslo this is a Church of England marriage, but I had thought that the family was Roman Catholic. Here is Maria in 1851:

This corroborates her birth in Ireland and her father as Martin as per the Marriage record above. So Steve’s maternal tree does lead to Ireland:

I would guess that the Lawler family moved from Ireland to England around 1841. In fact, here is the family in 1841 living in Leeds – though the last name is a bit mangled:

Who Was Fanny Lawler?

The hints on Ancestry lead me to believe that she was Frances Elina Green and that she was buried in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Let’s see if that seems reasonable. Here is the family in 1861:

Mary (or Maria) had left the home by now as she married in 1857. Here is the 1870 Census for Sumner, Wisconsin:

It appears that Dennis would be the son of Martin and Frances. At any rate, Dennis would have been born around 1824. The story is holding together as Dennis shows up in the 1841 as being 15. This would have him born around 1826. However ages over 15 were rounded.

The 1880 Census gives a middle name:

She is Frances Elina.

Here is a marriage record from Rathfarnham, South of Dublin, that appears to apply:

One issue with this marriage is that Frances would have been about 15 when she married if she was born in 1807. However, Frances was probably born before 1807:

One tree at Ancestry shows this:

Frances’ mother’s name is give as Mary Kenny. It would make sense for Frances’ father to be Richard as it would be traditional for Frances to name her second son after her father (and her first daughter after her mother).  Suffice it to say that Steve’s maternal line was in Ireland probably before the year 1800.

Ann and Her Maternal Genealogy

Here is my updated spreadsheet:

I have that Ann has a maternal ancestor of Helen McLaughlin, but where did she live? Ann has a three person tree at FTDNA and shows this person as her mother:

It turns out that I had already built out this tree:

I had gotten back to Ann Campbell born 1867 in County Tyrone, Ireland. A name like Campbell suggests a Scottish background. However, her mother may not have been Scottish.

At this point, at least in the early 1800’s mitochondrial matches’ DNA lead back to Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

• I continue to get about one zero step mitochondrial DNA match per year.
• When I trace my closest matches, their genealogy goes back to Ireland – at least in the early 1800’s.
• However, I trace my own maternal line to 1795 or before in Thorne, Yorkshire County, England.
• One early archaelogical sample of H5’36 was found in Edinburgh. Perhaps descendants set out from there to Ireland and England.
• The dating of H5’36 was confusing. It appears to go back to 6,000 BC or before, but my matches with zero genetic distance may be around 2,000 BC or sooner.
• YFull’s MTree seems to be more precise under H5’36 compared to FTDNA’s Haplotree.

 

I had written a draft of this post in February 2021, but had not posted it. I want to post this now as an update. Here is a link to my previous post on mitochondrial DNA (also posted after a hiatus).

I recently had a nice email from my first cousin Rusty. He told me he tested for MtDNA which is mitochondrial DNA. This is the type of DNA that goes from mother to mother to mother. As we are maternal cousins, we have a perfect match. Our common ancestor is our mother’s mother who was Emma Rathfelder born in 1900. Here is Emma holding her youngest:

Looking at the photo, Rusty’s mom is on the left of Emma and my mom is on Emma’s right. My Uncle Bobby in my grandmotheHere r’s arms was born in April 1933, so the picture must be in the Summer of 1933. My mom was born in December 1921, so she would be 11 years old here. Rusty’s mom, my Aunt Muriel was born in September 1924, so she would be close to 9 years old.

The MtDNA – Haplogroup H5’36

Here are all my MtDNA matches at a genetic distance of zero:

Rusty is the first person with whom I have a MtDNA match and I know our common ancestor. Looking at the last name of my matches are not much help, because with the maternal-only line, the surname generally changes every generation. Even looking at the Earliest Known Ancestors can be misleading. I’ll look at some of thse matches earliest maternal line only ancestors.

Rusty and Me

We go back to the Shefield, England area on our maternal side. I have my first known female line ancestor as Ann Scott:

Ann’s mother Ann Roebuck was born in 1795, so we’ll say Ann Scott was born around 1770. That is fairly early. Russ has Sarah Staniforth which cannot be right as she has two male Nicholsons in her line between her and us. Men are not allowed in the MtDNA line. They are only allowed at the end of the line where Rusty and I are.

Other Matches: Gallagher 1833

I can’t figure out this tree, so I’ll try to recreate it at Ancestry. I actually started one previously:

In doing these matches, I am intersted in where these maternal ancestors lived, because I am trying to match ancestors and places those ancestors lived. Margaret Campbell lived in Ireland. It appears from a preliminary review that this maternal line came from County Tyrone in Ireland.

McLaughlin

My fourth match has Helen McLaughlin with no date. When I build out this tree, there is also a Campbell from County Tyrone. Coincidence?

Bridget McKelvey

This is from my sixth 0 GD match. This family was also from Ireland. My MtDNA match’s tree is missing Bridget:

I think that the box marked ‘Private’ is meant to be my match’s grandmother Bridget, but he may have left out her death date, so the program decided to keep this person private. I see another tree at Ancestry which I will borrow:

This gets us one generation beyond Bridget or Biddy reto Ann/Nancy McGee.

So far, all road lead to Ireland (except for my ancestors). Here is Drumnaha:

Here is Ann or Nancy:

Elizabeth Jennings

My last zero GD MtDNA match has as his most distant female line ancestor Elizabeth Jennings. Unfortunately, he has posted no tree. He does post this information:

I assume that Elizabeth Jennings was his maternal grandmother and that she was from Ireland.

MtDNA Results at FTDNA

Here is one page of my results:

I am supposed to be able to download my results using the FASTA file buttom in orange. However, I’m having trouble doing that. Apparently FTDNA has an issue with this. Someone on Facebook corrected the error that was on the FTDNA site, so I was able to get the FASTA file. I uploaded this to YFull and to something called James Lick’s web page.

This is what I get at the James Lick MtDNA page after uploading:

Dating mtDNA Results

This is a topic that confuses me. I see this graphic at FTDNA:

I can make a few assumptions based on this graphic. One is that this applies to perfect matches only.

I can build a very simple tree that has Rust and me and our grandmother:

Even though this is a simple tree, it useful nonetheless. We have two generations to our common ancestor. I was born in 1956, so I’ll round that off to 60 years. The next most recent perfect match was frorm 2019 and this person has the maternal ancestor of Annie Gallagher born 1833 in Tyrone, Ireland.

Here is what I see at YFull:

The only number that matches FTDNA is the 125. I posted a question at the mtDNA Facebook Page, and got this answer from Rosario:

First, in order for you to have any verifiable and substantive genetic matches with mtDNA, one MUST have results from the FMS. Anything short of that is useless from a practical sense as full haplogroups and mutations can only be defind through FMS.

Summary and Conclusions

• I was glad that my first cousin Rusty tested his mitochondrial DNA as that gives me a match that I know
• I looked at a few other mitochondrial DNA matches.
• I noted that generally, mitochondrial DNA matches could be very distant – within 2200 years.
• My mitochondrial roots (maternal only ancestry) appear to be in the Brithish Isles over the past several thousands of years.

 

While looking over my old draft Blogs, I came upon this one last updated in November of 2020. I had not finished it, but I wanted to post this now to show the progression of my Mitochondrial DNA Matches.

My last Blog on my Mitochondrial DNA or MtDNA was in 2018. I won’t go over everthing I wrote there. At that time I had four perfect MtDNA matches:

At that time, I noted that I was getting about one perfect (or Genetic Distance of zero) match per year. That rate has kept up and now I have seven perfect matches:

My three new matches are with Anne, Elizabeth and Ann. The two additional female surnames noted are for Gallagher and McLaughlin.

Triangulation of Female Ancestors – Back to Ireland, or Not?

At the time of my previous 2018 Blog, it seemed like my mother’s female line went back to Ireland based on the common ancestors. FTDNA has a map of my current matches, but only the ones who have listed a location for their female line oldest ancestor:

Here is a key to the pins:

However, along with the map, the dates have to be considered. My female line, from what I can tell goes back to the 1700’s:

Ann Nicholson is my great-grandmother. Ann Scott was certainly born in the 1700’s. I am not certain of Roebuck and Scott, but onely mostly sure. My MtDNA Haplogroup of H5’36 certainly goes back to the British Isles, but I would like to know more than that.

However, 9 people list an earliest known ancestor. These are:

1. Gallagher
2. McLaughlin
3. McKelvey
4. Jennings
5. Coleman
6. Francis
7. Chiffink
8. Roberts, Jolly
9. Touhey

These names are helpful, but adding dates and places would be more helpful.

My MtDNA Matches’ Genealogy

The map above only shows the location of most distant female ancestor where that was added. Most people don’t add this information. Out of 21 matches:

• four people made it to the map
• 10 show that they have family trees at FTDNA
• 9 list an earliest known ancestor (see above)

The last two bullets have some overlap but some are only in one category or the other.

I’ll start a spreadsheet:

Already I have an issue. Anne’s tree has Anne O’Donnell as the oldest on her female-only line. But she listes Annie Gallagher.

A Tree for Newest MtDNA Match Anne

I can build a quick tree at Ancestry Here is Anne’s grandmother:

Anne’s great-grandmother is Margaret Campbell who was born in Ireland. Here is Maggie in 1900 in Philadelphia:

If this is right, Maggie came to the US as a baby in 1862. This appears to be Margaret’s death record:

Conlin is transcribed as Coulin.

This appears to be the passenger list for Maggie and her family:

It is more likely that Maggie was born in December 1862 than 1861. This ship, the Hecla, arrived June 29, 1863.

Summary and Conclusions

• The rate continues that I get about 1 new perfect Mitochondrial DNA match per year.
• Going through the genealogy on the maternal side for these matches – if these matches  have provided trees – takes time
• So far, I have not found a genealogical connection in any of my matches

 

 

 

This is my 233rd Blog and the first I have devoted entirely to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). This is about as technical as I’ll get with mitochondrial DNA:

The above is from Wikipedia. I had heard that Darwin understood a cell to be just a blob as it was one of the most basic elements known at the time. Perhaps he would be surprised to know that so much is going on in a cell. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down only from a mother to her children. YDNA passes only from father to son. However, Mitochondrial DNA passes down from mother to daughter and from mother to son.

My Line of Mitochondrial DNA

This is my line of inheritance of mitochondrial DNA is from mother to daughter going back as far as I can:

I’m sure of Martha Ellis. Her mom, Nancy Roebuck is not 100% certain, but as sure as I can be right now. Before that, Ann Scott would be a little less sure.

My MtDNA Matches

I have four perfect matches. They are:

• Nancy
• Terrence
• John
• Anthony

My most recent mtDNA match was with Anthony. I have been in touch with his sister Gillian. Here is their maternal line:

When I put the two trees together, I get this:

It is possible that Ann Scott and Bridget are sisters. However, the common ancestor is more likely further back.

More About the MtDNA – H5’36

 

Here are my H5’36 matches at FTDNA:

The Genetic Distance (GD) is listed on the left. I have been in touch with the first four matches. I should also look into the matches that have a GD of 1. It occurs to me that a line could have had a mutation in the 1800’s or 1900’s and have a closer common ancestor with me than someone with a GD of 0.

FTDNA’s mtDNA Haplogroup Project

My mtDNA Haplogroup and that of my matches is H5’36. The H Haplogroup is very popular in the area of Europe and the British Isles. Here are those that have joined the H5 Haplogroup Project at FTDNA:

H5’36 is listed first on the H5 Project page. That is because I believe that this group is the oldest. H5’36 is listed before H5 as it was discovered after H5, but found to be older. The oldest maternal ancestors listed above were found to be from England or Ireland.

More About Genetic Distance

In the image above, there are five people that have tested positive for H5’36. Yet they have different HVR1 and HVR2 Mutations. It would make sense to assume that those with the fewest mutations would be from an older branch and those with the most mutations from a newer branch of H5’36. The last two people listed have the same and fewest mutations:

In the next step, I have one mutation that is different from the descendants of Howe and Touhey. This mutation has been named A16129G:

Because I have zero GD with Nancy, John, Terrence and Gillian, I can add them into this group.

Next, I just have to fit in the descendants of Pearson and Privette. These two testers have mutation 309.1C in common. But I see that Pearson and Privette also A16129G. The tree is still correct, but the second box from the top should say common ancestors of all except for Howe and Touhey.

Here is what I get for the H5’36 Tree based on those that belong to the H5 FTDNA Project.

The descendant of Privette has a lot of mutations which could mean that there could be more branching going on there. The branch of the tree that I am in with the other four is defined by being positive for A16129G but negative for 309.1C.

One question I have is that from my tree, I appear to be a GD of one from the descendant of Touhey. Yet on my match list I am listed at a GD of three from this person.

The Matches Map

FTDNA also has a helpful Matches Map:

This shows me in white – or rather, my mother’s mother’s mother’s, etc. location. The most important balloon after that is the red one. That is for John’s mother’s mother’s mother’s, etc.

Here is John’s mtDNA tree added in:

From the above:

• The female common ancestor that John, Gillian, Anthony, Nancy, Terrence and I have has a Haplogroup of H5’36 and a perfect match in the coding regions.
• As far as I know, my four perfect mtDNA matches have ancestors in Ireland. That means that it is most likely that my maternal line also goes back to Ireland.
• I had previously proposed that perhaps a common ancestor lived in Scotland and one group went to Ireland and another to the Sheffield area. However, the mounting evidence of matching with people who have ancestors in Ireland makes it look like Ireland could be where the common ancestor came from.
• It appears that Gillian’s ancestor Bridget was not afraid to travel. Gillian has her ancestor born in Ireland, giving birth in India and later living in Kent, England.

Summary and Conclusions

• The mtDNA test shows that there are five people who have a common genetic ancestor that is H5’36 with the same coding.
• I have been getting 0 GD (that is, perfect) mtDNA matches for four years. That is an average of one match per year. I had one match in 2014, one in 2015 and two in 2018.
• The mtDNA matches suggest that one strand of my mother’s line came from Ireland.
• I drew an mtDNA Tree to show who is aligned with who and to who whose mtDNA has mutated more or less from the original H5’36 Haplogroup.