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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-10 > 1128265735
From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Help with Genealogy Research Strategy - MtDNA
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 11:08:55 EDT
In a message dated 10/01/05 8:04:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:
> About a year ago, I paid for the FTDNA MtDNA test which tests for the
> greatest number of markers. Since doing that, I have found one person with whom
> I have a perfect high resolution match.
>
> I took this test because I was hoping to use the results to find my great
> grandmother's family. She was orphaned and later adopted. We have what we
> believe to be her real surname and only a few clues about her past.
>
> Now, it is my understanding that this high resolution match should
> theoretically allow me to ultimately connect to my great grandmother's maternal line.
> As I understand it from the FTDNA information, I should be able to find a
> common female ancestor within approximately 5 generations if I keep
> researching back. Is this right? I realize that I will have to identify every female
> sibling in every generation.
Anne Nelson has already given you some excellent strategies for searching,
but I just wanted to double-check with you. I think you may have the wrong
impression about how recent a common ancestor might be. The "5 generations" number
is about right for a high resolution (37-marker) Y-chromosome match, but mtDNA
has a much lower mutation rate, and you may have the same haplotype as an
ancestor who lived thousands of years ago. Thus looking for a common ancestor
when you have a random match may not pay off. However, it sounds like you do have
a rare haplotype, so any matches are worth considering. And if your
traditional research efforts can locate a candidate for testing, a match would be very
strong support for a connection.
Ann Turner
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