Quick mtDNA Q&A

And:
the mtDNA is not in the nucleus of the cell where the 'chromosome' DNA is situated. The mtDNA is in the mitochondria. Thus there is no chromosome matching for mtDNA. The matching is per position. Your results are given as to reference set either rCRS or RSRS .

I'm mt-DNA J2b1b, anybody here that matches?

Not that I can see at the moment.

Aura May Austin

Hi C. Barry, I share your interest in mitochondrial DNA. mtDNA is inherited from the mother. A number of theories exist for why this is so. One is simply to do with numbers, an egg contains on average 20,000 mtDNA molecules and the sperm contains about 5 mtDNA molecules. Another reason is location. mtDNA are found primarily in the tip of the tail of the sperm and sometimes the tail is lost during fertilization.

We may start to see more cases of interference with the maternal inheritance of mtDNA. For instance, invitro fertilization techniques involving the injection of a sperm into an egg may result in the offspring inheriting paternal mtDNA. Also, a single human male inherited mtDNA from his father! (New England Journal of Medicine, 2002:347:576-580).

For me, mtDNA can help us answer one of the most fundamental questions of all, Where do we come from?

Thanks,
Maternal line research is difficult even on paper.
Its like a catch 22 situation.
More people do there paternal line, because they want to know where the surname the have came from, so very few people do their maternal line.
That make it difficult because there is less info available.
That is the same with DNA research. A lot of Y DNA reseach and only a few mtDNA research, or should I say DNA Donors?
And then having to deal with contaminated DNA. In breading/back marriaging already make autosomal DNA a bit of a rubix cube, so hopefully we could get enough clean mtDNA to clear the picture before sperm tales fogs it up.

Hi. I submitted my FASTA file from FTDNA to the James Click site and I am curious if there is anyone who can help me to better understand it. I have questions about a "mismatch" and "extras." My mTDNA Hapolgroup shows to be T1a4, with the following mismatches & extras on this particular result (if you need more info, please let me know):

Mismatches(1): 16186C
Extras(4): (309.1C) (315.1C) 499A 9266A 16185.1T 16189-

Thanks! :)

Hi,
The extras are simply genes that you have but which are not presently known to belong to any of the haplogroups along your tree up to and including the assigned haplogroup. This is a good thing! It means that future testers that also have these haplogroups might add more haplogroups downstream of where you are now, and maybe even get the most recent common ancestor estimates within documentable genealogical timeframes, i.e within 500 years or so!

Mismatches on the other hand are genes that you have that are known to don't match the haplogroup that you are assigned to. This might either be because you should actually belong to a sub-haplogroup with a reverse mutation on that gene, or because that gene has just not been identified for that haplogroup yet. Either way, same as above, it might allow for the creation of a new branch!

Svein-Magnus Bergan Sørensen Thank you! I actually uploaded results to YFull and it came back as T1a4a*. So, I think they have, maybe, started to define a new sub-haplogroup, but not sure the scientific community has. I'm still learning about this stuff. :)

Correct! It appears they have created a new subgroup already (the final "a"), but the * also indicated that you and the others in that group don't share any of the remaining genes, so whenever more testers appear you will each be placed in different sub-sub-groups.