Population Finder contrasted with mtDNA result

[VelvetVellocet]

Hi everyone,

My mtDNA is H1b1c european haplogroup. I know this is from my mother's side. My population finder gives me similar results as my mother's (I don't have every group she has listed - possibly because it's pulling from her father's dna profile?) however... I also have 9% Middle Eastern showing up in my population finder which isn't showing up in my mother's result.

I suppose it's safe to say that my Population Finder is pulling Middle Eastern from my father's dna profile? Could I also assume that my father has 18% Middle Eastern ancestry - (just thinking this could be true because I'd pull 1/2 of his genetics)? I haven't made a Population Finder test on his kit.

Just need someone to confirm that for me.

[keigh]

Your mother's mtDNA is only showing a very narrow line of descent. It's only mother to mother to mother (females only). At the 4th Great Grandparent level it means you have a small bit of information from the mtDNA on one person out of 64 ancestors. And the haplogroup isn't even from the the same DNA that the ethnicity or population test is run on. All you know from it is that it's European. I'm H10c1 and my population group is Western European from the Family Finder test. But that Western European is from both sides of my family tree.

When we draw our DNA from our parents we usually get about 50% from each parent, but we don't get exactly 25% of each grandparent. That's because the grandparent's DNA is recombined into our parent's DNA. And we get only a part of their DNA. Siblings draw DNA from different sections of their parent's DNA so you might get a completely different result than a brother or sister might have when looking at population percentages. My brother has a different ethnic population than I have. He got the Finnish Dna and I got none.

So from your father, you pull about 50% of his DNA, but you don't know which 50%. You could miss out on a population entirely.