GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-03 > 1174651843


From: Cheryl Simani <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] mtDNA of H in Native American
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 05:10:43 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <BAY111-DAV653CCB8D59D94B44EB52EB16A0@phx.gbl>


I'm remained of the Dustin Hoffman movie "Little Big Man." His Swedish wife was stolen by the Indians, but when he finally found her, she was living quiet happily with his childhood companion. Makes one wonder how many Olga's (high possiblity mt-X) fit that pattern. ;-)

Lawrence Mayka <> wrote: By the way, what I have been able to find about mtDNA X is just the
opposite. Every paper that tries to put together a phylogeny gets totally
superseded by new examples that don't fit. The situation never gets
clearer, just muddier.

The most recent comprehensive paper I can find is Reidla 2003:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v73n5/40218/40218.html

The administrators of the mtDNA X Project have tried to summarize Reidla's
phylogeny, on the Goals tab of their project web site:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/x/

153 is listed as part of the HVR2 motif for X itself, but kit #77674 in my
project doesn't have that mutation.

HVR2 146 and 195 are listed in the separate motifs for X1 and X2, but kit
#77674 in my project has both of them.

HVR2 200 is listed as distinctive to the Native American X2a subclade, but
kit #N13497 has it. However, that same kit also has 225A and 226C, which
are the motif of the X2b subclade. That kit is not in my project, but its
HVR1 exactly matches kit #52539 in my project whose HVR2 has not yet been
tested. I'm wondering whether to encourage this project member to order
mtDNARefine on the possibility that his Lithuanian mother may be Native
American. ;)

In short, mtDNA is still a mess, because researchers are still attempting to
pretend that mitochondrial mutations are UEPs, when they obviously are not.

Perhaps, when the whole world can afford full mtDNA sequencing, the picture
will improve. Or maybe not.

> [mailto:] On Behalf Of
> Bonnie Schrack
> From what I understand,
> there are very distinctive mutations that make it clear
> whether a person
> belongs to a European or Native American branch of X. The
> phylogeny is
> getting more developed all the time, and unless someone on the list
> knows more and can show evidence that it's otherwise, I would
> say that
> the increasing resolution of the tree is making it harder to
> talk about
> a fuzzy kind of X that would embrace European and Native American
> lineages.



-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message



---------------------------------
Get your own web address.
Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business.

This thread: