Do you have an mtDNA Success Story?

[efgen]

I'm hoping to give an mtDNA Success Stories webinar in the near future -- but I need more stories!

If you have an mtDNA success story that you're willing to share, please send me a private message here on the forum. Include a brief summary of your story, relevant kit numbers and your email address. I'll then get in contact with you soon to discuss further details.

If privacy is a concern, we can share your story without revealing personal information (such as by using alternate names). So please do still contact me!

Thanks!
Elise

[Jim Barrett]

Hard to have a mtDNA success story when over 90% of your matches don't provide any maternal line information.

I understand that some people don't have that information, but over 90%! I also know the upload isn't working right now, but is hasn't been broken all of the time during the last eight or nine years.

[hansonrf]

I do not have an mtDNA success story. I have done FMS and so far do not have any mtDNA story of my own. After 2 years, I have considered it my poorest DNA investment.

I purchased yDNA and have gradually upgraded to y-111. Y-12 and 25 have been pretty useless except a haplo swag [free with 23andMe]. Y-37 and 67 got me productive 'leads' back to Holland and Germany/Denmark in the early-mid 1600s; y-111 has had no added value and thus not the bang for the buck...yet. Happy to wait, though and have actually bought a couple extra SNPs.

FF is worth every penny 10-fold and I paid a lot 2 years ago; close to $300 as I recall. I have verified my paternity [my paternal grandfather was indeed my unwed grandmother's sister's husband], my maternal grandfather's true nationality [Egyptian vs Am. Indian], confirmed my G Grandmother's father and his second family, and allowed me to help an adopted friend find his birth father and confirm it to a virtual certainty [in our opinions, anyway].

FWIW,

Bob

[hansonrf]

Hard to have a mtDNA success story when over 90% of your matches don't provide any maternal line information.

I understand that some people don't have that information, but over 90%! I also know the upload isn't working right now, but is hasn't been broken all of the time during the last eight or nine years.

And when you do have it, you rarely have the times and places you need to truly connect the dots as the surnames [maiden] are often lost or meaningless, too.

[Wing_Genealogis]

mtDNA success story

I have been able to correct an error in a paper-trail genealogy using mtDNA testing.

My "umbilical" ancestry runs through Phebe Lovejoy, wife of Davis Walton of Amherst, NH and Winthrop, ME. There were two contemporary Phebe Lovejoys who could have been his wife:

Phebe, d/o Capt. Henry Lovejoy & Phebe Chandler, born Andover 20 SEP 1735

Phebe, d/o Hezekiah Lovejoy & Hannah Austin, born Andover 24 OCT 1737

According to several sources, including the Austin Families of America http://afaoa.org/db_files/Samuel_Aus...als/I3324.html Phebe, d/o Hezekiah & Hannah married her cousin, Daniel Austin (1727-1773).

However, my mtDNA clade is J1c2g, currently a very small subclade with a rare HVR1 mutation at 16256T. Searching the old Sorenson mtDNA database, I discovered where I had an exact match to someone whose "umbilical" ancestor was Hannah (Lovejoy) Stanley (1724-1796) who was a daughter of Hezekiah Lovejoy & Hannah Austin.

This mtDNA match confirms that my ancestor, Phebe (Lovejoy) Davis was also the daughter of Hezekiah Lovejoy & Hannah Austin and that the traditional "paper-trail" genealogy is in error in stating she was the wife of Daniel Austin.

[B52]

I don't know that this would be considered a success by most but I have done 2 levels of mtDNA testing and plan to do full sequencing next year and have 1 exact match (actually 2 now but the 2nd removed their results).

In my maternal line my grandmother told me there is Amerindian (injun in her accent) in her Grandmother Madden's line and that she carried a tomahawk (for the kitchen) so it would have been convenient if that Amerindian component was the origin of the direct maternal component in my ancestry but that turned out not to be the case.

...anyway, I couldn't verify this story of Amerindian ancestry although distant cousins tell the same stories there is no paper trail. My single exact match knows he has Amerindian ancestry via a paper trail but his direct line of maternal ancestry leads to a woman with a different name than my maternal ancestor but also originating in the present day state of Kentucky.

As far as the geographic origin of the mtDNA that is almost surely central Finland and from what I've read that still leaves open the possibility that it was Siberian in origin which leads back to the Americas. It's also becoming clearer that there is both a European and an African contribution to the Amerindian gene pool from before the time of Christopher Columbus and Leif Ericson further complicating things. Although in my case I think the maternal ancestor did originate in Finland fleeing the Romans from central Germany and one of them mated with an Amerindian man in colonial times. A Family Finder test would have to show an Amerindian ancestry in my family tree now although the other evidence I have is tantalizingly close. The old ethnic test from FTDNA did show 2% East Asian. I'm not interested in joining a tribe or even 'reconstituting' a tribe as a few are but I am interested in the story my Grandmother told me.

So I guess my success is knowing the maternal origin is in Finland and having one exact match in the Americas.

[fresnolady]

I don't know that this would be considered a success by most but I have done 2 levels of mtDNA testing and plan to do full sequencing next year and have 1 exact match (actually 2 now but the 2nd removed their results).

In my maternal line my grandmother told me there is Amerindian (injun in her accent) in her Grandmother Madden's line and that she carried a tomahawk (for the kitchen) so it would have been convenient if that Amerindian component was the origin of the direct maternal component in my ancestry but that turned out not to be the case.

...anyway, I couldn't verify this story of Amerindian ancestry although distant cousins tell the same stories there is no paper trail. My single exact match knows he has Amerindian ancestry via a paper trail but his direct line of maternal ancestry leads to a woman with a different name than my maternal ancestor but also originating in the present day state of Kentucky.

As far as the geographic origin of the mtDNA that is almost surely central Finland and from what I've read that still leaves open the possibility that it was Siberian in origin which leads back to the Americas. It's also becoming clearer that there is both a European and an African contribution to the Amerindian gene pool from before the time of Christopher Columbus and Leif Ericson further complicating things. Although in my case I think the maternal ancestor did originate in Finland fleeing the Romans from central Germany and one of them mated with an Amerindian man in colonial times. A Family Finder test would have to show an Amerindian ancestry in my family tree now although the other evidence I have is tantalizingly close. The old ethnic test from FTDNA did show 2% East Asian. I'm not interested in joining a tribe or even 'reconstituting' a tribe as a few are but I am interested in the story my Grandmother told me.

So I guess my success is knowing the maternal origin is in Finland and having one exact match in the Americas.

My 2x great grandmother was a Madden and we too have been told there was american Indian blood but I have not been able to find the connection.

[Tenn4ever]

I have done the FMS mtDNA test and consider it to be a poor investment. I would not recommend it to anyone to help complete their paper trail.

The Y testing I've had different cousins do have been helpful and the FF is fantastic.

[Gerolyn]

I'm hoping to give an mtDNA Success Stories webinar in the near future -- but I need more stories!

If you have an mtDNA success story that you're willing to share, please send me a private message here on the forum. Include a brief summary of your story, relevant kit numbers and your email address. I'll then get in contact with you soon to discuss further details.

If privacy is a concern, we can share your story without revealing personal information (such as by using alternate names). So please do still contact me!

Thanks!
Elise

[MPH]

No surprise this section has been quiet....

[Everwaiting]

Elise -

Some members of the mtDNA Haplogroup I Project have reported genealogical success stories. I will contact the ones I remember and ask them to write to you. :-)

Actually, in my opinion, full-sequence testing is always a success story. That's because those results permanently enable testers to find exactly where they belong on the mtDNA tree. Even if it does not add names to a tester's family tree, knowing their specific subclade sets the stage for them to learn more about the origins, later migrations, and historical events affecting a segment of their ancestry. Personally, I have always been curious and interested in knowing the whereabouts and circumstances of my ancestors 2,000+ years ago.

For some subclades, a marvelous and gratifying amount of information is already known. For others, new information will be discovered in time as data accumulates. This field is still young, and the mtDNA tree has much more growing to do.

- Martha Hicks

[dna]

Elise -

Some members of the mtDNA Haplogroup I Project have reported genealogical success stories. I will contact the ones I remember and ask them to write to you. :-)

Actually, in my opinion, full-sequence testing is always a success story. That's because those results permanently enable testers to find exactly where they belong on the mtDNA tree. Even if it does not add names to a tester's family tree, knowing their specific subclade sets the stage for them to learn more about the origins, later migrations, and historical events affecting a segment of their ancestry. Personally, I have always been curious and interested in knowing the whereabouts and circumstances of my ancestors 2,000+ years ago.

For some subclades, a marvelous and gratifying amount of information is already known. For others, new information will be discovered in time as data accumulates. This field is still young, and the mtDNA tree has much more growing to do.

- Martha Hicks

Back mutations (reversions) create more severe problems (as compared to Y-DNA) when analyzing mtDNA for genealogy and ancestry since mtDNA is really small...

W.

[Tenn4ever]

If you are parsing your dollars I would not do this test. Spend you money on Y tests or even on paying for cousins testing for you with the FF or Y tests.

I guess it could depend on your own personal situation but I already had my paper trail documented back about eleven generations on my mother's direct line. It was my 2nd most documented line of my gg-grandparents. The mtDNA test did nothing to further that line.

I might add I'm not interested in anthropology particularly. If that's your bent then maybe you may like this test but if it's for genealogy furtherance I would not bother. It can confirm a line but otherwise not much help.

Plus, I might add it's one of the more expensive tests...your money is better spent elsewhere.

[mollyblum]

While this is not exactly a success story- I would not exactly say it is a poor investment. Certainly if you are using it to help w a paper trail or find other relatives but it helps confirm ancestry and can confirm where a maternal line comes from. I did mine to see if our Jewish line was confirmed genetically and if it would clarify if we were Ashkenazi or Sephardic. My maternal line was K1a1b1a which confirmed that the maternal line has been Jewish for thousands of years. Behar has done an article on this haplogroup which gave me more insight into my origins. However, I had no (and still don't) aspirations of finding any kind of relatives with an MtDNA profile. I really don't think that is what it is for.

However, about 80-90% of my matches seem to be from the same region in the Ukraine near the shtetl where my ggreatgrandmother lived so I suppose it is possible to find a relation.

But people forget about adoption cases where MtDNA can be very helpful. Certainly not a wasted investment!

[Mud Clerk]

Historical Event and mtDNA

The enemy commander boasted to his troops it would take One Million Men, One Hundred Years to overcome his Pacific Island atoll fortress. Two years of much forced labor construction on the atoll of Tarawa had convinced him the atoll could not be 'taken' by American or Allied forces during WW2.

Enter the United States Marines! In three days and four hours the Island atoll and airstrip was in Allied hands and the boastful enemy commander lay mortally wounded among the dead.

Two weeks ago an FTDNA cousin of mine received a message on her ancestry dot com page. It was from a group of volunteers for the Marines in Quantico, VA.

They said they were using ancestry dot com in an attempt to locate a living female relative of American Marine, Bob Doil Herman. PvtFC Marine Herman died in the Sands of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943. His remains were lost to time for 72 years! Recently, volunteers located remains which they believe could belong to cousin Bob. They told my FTDNA cousin they would need a living female born of a surname female of Bob's maternal line for a mtDNA test to ID the remains. My FTDNA cousin or I did not qualify but we located a living female relative who matched their needs.

Marine Herman's remains will be returning to the Land and Liberty he defended and the World he, in part, helped save.

We are so grateful for the field of genealogy and DNA sites. Who knows if the tests we take today will help unknown future family members in ways we cannot imagine?

Thank You FTDNA