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mtDNA Haplogroups

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Top Surnames

Turner and Warneford
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Profiles

This is a master project, to collect information about the specific mtDNA haplogroup projects on Geni.

All modern humans descend in the female line from a particular woman, nicknamed "Mitochondrial Eve," who lived about 150,000 years ago. Each of us has inherited her mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), along with the mutations that have accumulated in our individual family lines.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) passes to a woman's children without any contribution from the father. That is, mtDNA does not recombine as autosomal DNA does. So, your mtDNA will match your mother and her children exactly. But, if you are male, you won’t pass on your mtDNA to your children. Your sisters, on the other hand, will pass on their mtDNA unchanged to their children.

Mitochondrial DNA passes to each generation unchanged except for occasional mutations. The mutation rate for mtDNA is very low; perhaps one mutation at a given spot every 10,000-12,000 years. Therefore, mtDNA changes very slowly over many generations.

These characteristics make mtDNA useful to both geneticists and genealogists. It is a useful tool for understanding the remote origins of the human race, for tracing pre-historic population movements, and for matching people who belong to the same female line.

mtDNA analysis

The mitochondria consist of 16569 SNPs that can be tested. Typically these are tested in three steps: (from Family Tree DNA’s FAQ)

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has two major parts, the control region and the coding region.

The control region is often called the hypervariable region (HVR). Hypervariable means fast changing. In mitochondrial DNA, the control region is the fast changing part. The control region may be further divided into two Hypervariable regions, HVR1 and HVR2.

  • HVR1 runs from nucleotide 16001 to nucleotide 16569.
  • HVR2 runs from nucleotide 00001 to nucleotide 00574.

The coding region (CR) is the part of your mtDNA genome that contains genes. Because it does contain some genes, the coding region is believed to be slower mutating than the control region. Often, it is the mutations that are found in the coding region that are used to define haplogroups.

  • The coding region runs from nucleotide 00575 to nucleotide 16000.

The only complete test that will assign you with certainty to your haplogroup and subgroup is a Full Sequence test. This is offered by Family Tree DNA (normal price $299), look for special offers here on Geni.com.

Haplogroup Projects

Ashkenazi Projects

See the main project at Ashkenzi DNA Founding Mothers for more information.

How to Participate

To participate in this project, join or follow any of the haplogroup projects, then add your oldest known ancestor who belonged to that haplogroup. The profile must be set to public in order to add it.

If your ancestor belonged to a group that doesn't have a project, send a message to one of this project's collaborators. We'll create a project for you.

Creating Sub-Projects

If your ancestor belonged to a group that doesn't have a project, send a message to one of this project's collaborators. We'll create a project for you.

Or, follow these steps to create the project yourself:

  1. Create the project. The standard name format for mtDNA projects is V2 (mtDNA).
  2. Drop in the standardized headings (Defining Mutations, Origin, Distribution, Subclades, Famous Members, How to Participate, Resources) Here is a Template if you need it
  3. Add the new project to this mtDNA Haplogroups page.
  4. Copy the group of links for the entire haplogroup to the Subclades section of all its sub-projects.
  5. Add the mtDNA master project and all of that haplogroup's sub-projects as Related Projects.

If You Need Help

  1. Post a question about genetic genealogy here
  2. Post a question about DNA testing here
  3. Post a question about mtDNA projects here
  4. Or, send a message to any of the following curators:

Resources
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