Sometimes, a match is not a match. I know, now I’ve gone and ruined your day…
One of the questions that everyone wants the answer to when looking at matches, regardless of what kind of DNA testing we’re talking about, is “how long ago?” How long ago did I share a common ancestor with my match? Seems like a pretty simple question doesn’t it?
The answer, especially with mitochondrial DNA is not terribly straightforward. A perfect example of this fell into my lap this week, and I’m sharing it with you.
Mitochondrial DNA – A Short Primer
There are three regions that are tested in mitochondrial DNA testing for genealogy. The HVR1 and HVR2 regions are tested at most testing companies, and at Family Tree DNA, the rest of the mitochondria, called the coding region, is tested as well with the full mitochondrial sequence test. This is the mitochondrial equivalent of Paul Harvey’s “the rest of the story,” and of course we all know that the real story is always in “the rest of the story” or he wouldn’t be telling us about it!
Many times, the rest of the story is critically important. In mitochondrial DNA, it’s the only way to obtain your full haplogroup designation. If you don’t want to just be haplogroup J or A or H, you can test the coding region by taking the full sequence test and find out that you’re J1c2 or A2 or H21, and discover the story that goes with that haplogroup. Guaranteed, it’s a lot more specific than the one that goes with simple J, A or H. Often it’s the difference between where your ancestor was 2000 years ago and 20,000 years ago – and they probably covered a lot of territory in 18,000 years!
Let’s take a quick look at mitochondrial DNA.
To begin with, the HVR1 and HVR2 regions are called HVR for a reason – it’s short for hypervariable. And of course, that means they vary, or mutate, a lot more rapidly, as compared to the coding region of the mitochondrial DNA.
In layman’s terms, think of a clock. No, not a digital clock, an old-fashioned alarm clock.
The entire mitochondrial DNA has 16,569 locations. The HVR1 and HVR2 regions take up the space on the clock face from 5 till until 5 after the hour. The rest is the coding region – the mitochondrial “rest of the story.” The coding region mutates much slower than the two HVR regions.
Just to be sure we’re on the same page, let’s talk for just a minute about how mitochondrial haplogroup assignments work. For a detailed discussion of haplogroup assignments and how they are done, see Bill Hurst’s discussion here.
Generally a base haplogroup can be reasonably assigned by HVR1 region testing, but not always. Sometimes they change with full sequence testing – so what you think you know may not be the end result.
My full haplogroup is J1c2f. My base haplogroup is J. I’m on the first branch of J, J1. On branch J1, I’m on the third stick, c, J1c. On the third stick J1c, I’m on the second twig, J1c2. On the second twig, J1c2, I’m leaf f, or J1c2f. Each of these branches of haplogroup J is determined by a specific mutation that happened long ago and was then passed to all of that person’s offspring, between them and me today. The question is always, how long ago?
Mutation Rates – How Long Ago is Long Ago?
While we have a tip calculator at Family Tree DNA for Y-line DNA to predict how long ago 2 Y-line matches shared a most recent common ancestor, we don’t have anything similar for mitochondrial DNA, partly because of the great variation in the mutation rates for the various regions of mitochondrial DNA. Family Tree DNA does provide guidelines for the HVR1 region, but they are so broad as to be relatively useless genealogically. For example, at the 50th percentile, you are likely to have a common ancestor with someone whom you match exactly on the HVR1 mutations in 52 generations, or about 1300 years ago, in the year 713. Wait, I know just who that is in my family tree!
These estimates do not take into account the HVR2 or coding regions.
I did some research jointly with another researcher not long ago attempting to determine the mutation rate for those regions, and we found estimates that ranged from 500 years to several thousand years per mutation occurrence and it wasn’t always clear in the publications whether they were referring to the entire mitochondria or just certain portions. And then there are those pesky hot-spots that for some reason mutate a whole lot faster than other locations. We’re not even going there. Suffice it to say there is a wide divergence in opinion among academics, so we probably won’t be seeing any type of mito-tip calculator anytime soon.
Enter SmartMatching
Family Tree DNA does their best to make our matches useful to us and to eliminate matches that we know aren’t genealogically relevant.
For example, this week, I was working on a client’s DNA Report. Let’s call him Joe. Joe is haplogroup J1c2. I am haplogroup J1c2f. J1c2f has one additional haplogroup defining mutation, in the coding region, that J1c2 does not have.
Joe and I did not show as matches at Family Tree DNA, even though our HVR1 and HVR2 regions are exact matches. Now, for a minute, that gave me a bit of a start. In fact, I didn’t even realize that we were exact matches until I was working with his results at MitoSearch and recognized my own User ID.
I had to think for a minute about why we would not be considered matches at Family Tree DNA, and I was just about ready to submit a bug report, when I realized the answer was my extended haplogroup. This, by the way, is the picture-perfect example of why you need full sequence testing.
Family Tree DNA knows that we both tested at the full sequence level. They know that with a different haplogroup, we don’t share a common ancestor in hundreds to thousands of years, so it doesn’t matter if we match exactly on the HVR1 and HVR2 levels, we DON’T match on a haplogroup defining mutation, which, in this case, happens to be in the coding region, found only with full sequence testing. Even if we have only one mismatch at the full sequence level, if it’s a haplogroup defining marker, we are not considered matches. Said a different way, if our only difference was location 9055 and 9055 was NOT a haplogroup defining mutation, we would have been considered a match on all three levels – exact matches at the HVR1 and HVR2 levels and a 1 mutation difference at the full sequence level. So how a mutation is identified, whether it’s haplogroup defining or not, is critical.
In our case, I carry a mutation at marker 9055 in the coding region that defines haplogroup J1c2f. Joe doesn’t have this mutation, so he is not J1c2f, just J1c2. So we don’t match.
So – How Long Ago for Me and Joe?
Dr. Behar in his “Copernican Reassessment of the Mitochondrial DNA Tree,” which has become the virtual Bible of mitochondrial DNA, estimates that the J1c2f haplogroup defining mutation at location 9055 occurred about 2000 years ago, plus or minus another 3000 years, which means my ancestor who had that mutation could have lived as long ago as 5000 years.
The mutations that define haplogroup J1c2 occurred about 9800 years ago, plus or minus another 2000. So we know that Joe and I share a common ancestor about 7,800 – 11,800 years ago and our lines diverged sometime between then and 2,000 – 5,000 years ago. So, in round numbers our common ancestor lived between 2,000 and 9,800 years ago. Not much chance of identifying that person!
The ability to eliminate “near-misses” where the HVR1+HVR2 matches but the people aren’t in the same haplogroup, which is extremely common in haplogroup H, is actually a very useful feature that Family Tree DNA nicknamed SmartMatching. With over 1000 matches at the HVR1 level, more than 200 at the HVR1+HVR2 level and another 50+ at the full sequence level, Joe certainly didn’t need to have any “misleading” matches included that could have been eliminating by a logic process.
So while Joe and I match, technically, if you only look at the HVR1 and HVR2 levels, we don’t really match, and that’s not evident at MitoSearch or at Ancestry or anyplace else that does not take into consideration both full sequence AND haplogroup defining mutations. Family Tree DNA is the only company that does this.
It’s interesting to think about the fact that 2 people can match exactly at the HVR1+HVR2 levels, but the distance of the relationship can be vastly different. I also match my mother on the HVR1+HVR2 levels, exactly, and our common ancestor is her. So the distance to a common ancestor with an exact HVR1+HVR2 match can be anyplace from one generation (Mom) to thousands of years (Joe), and there is no way to tell the difference without full sequence testing and in this case, SmartMatching.
And that, my friends, is the rest of the story!
Please use grammar check. It should be Joe and I not Me and Joe…please! You are not the Cookie Monster even if you do love cookies!
It was meant to rhyme and be cute. How Long Ago for Me and Joe…
It should be Joe and me.
This was supposed to be poetic and rhyme.
How Long Ago was Long Ago
How Long Ago for Me and Joe
Guess it missed the mark.
There is a bit of an artist / poet in me and actually, I like the ‘poetic license’ used with the rhyme. It adds character to what is a lot of times a very ‘dry’ subject. Thanks for the article it is the first one that I have read that actually helped clear this mitochondrial HVR DNA subject up for me.
I think that you have no idea when to use “me” (an objective pronoun), so you like what seems to be an entire generation who were likely (and correctly) corrected when they used “me” as a subjective pronoun e.g. when you said “Me and my fiends are going to the game.”, someone corrected you by saying, you mean to say: “My friends and I are going to the game.” Unfortunately, you took that to mean “me” is never grammatically correct and spent the rest of your life using “I” incorrectly as an “objective pronoun” as well.
If you and I can agree that Roberta is much smarter than you and I (still subjective), then that will be the last you hear from ME. By the way, she correctly used both “Joe and I” at least twice in her article and has even with poetic license correctly used “me and Joe” as both Joe and she (not her) are the object of her question “How long ago FOR . . . .?” There is no grammatical rule that says I have to put anyone else before me i.e., “I and you” (subjects) and “me and you” (objects) are “all good” (colloquialism).
A grammar check will prove your criticism wrong. “for me and Joe” is not grammatically incorrect. “Me” is objective case after the preposition “for”. It may be more felicitous to put Joe’s name first, but it is not grammatically, incorrect, whereas nominative “I” after a preposition is incorrect.
Very nice article. Thanks
Roberta
Thanks again for another great bit of education on DNA genealogy. And equally important to some of us for providing links for further reading (Hurst & Behar). Nothing better than being back in a grad school environment.
One of the things that I really love about this field is that there is always something really interesting to learn, and you can stay on the surface and get benefit or dive as deep as you want.
Very clear explanation of a very complex & difficult subject to comprehend.
I have done the ‘full’ test and you created a very interesting report for me.
One of my best matches is a match not for me in FF but my Mum? Also I note some unusual names in MtDNA results that seem to point to some FF matches. Are there ever clues in MtDNA matches that can help solve genealogical road blocks & provide clues for adoptees? Thank you
Hi Julia….sneaky way to get me to address that question. LOL But yes, there are, and I’ll be blogging about it soon:) Hint – it’s not always what you think:)
We will be waiting for this article. Many people say MtDNA is useless to adoptees but I’m sure there must be some use to it, at least it tells part of our history. I think MtDNA is so underestimated. Very interesting article, thanks.
Not sneaky just curious 🙂 Will watch and wait with interest. Thanks.
🙂
Roberta, thanks so much for the recent article on mtDNA. Just two days ago I received the results of my full mtDNA genome test. I had one match, which is the only one I’ve ever had since I first tested about five years ago. However, until I read your article, I had no idea what that really meant. He and I are 3 steps off, and I’m still not sure exactly what that means, but it seems that at least we know that within the last few hundred years (as opposed to thousands) we shared a common female ancestor. He had traced his line back to Scotland in the 1700’s and I had traced mine to SW VA in the mid 1700’s. (He lives in Australia.) Since my mom’s ancestry shows to be 100% Orcadian, that makes sense.
All of your articles on DNA have really been of a big help to me. I find myself reading them again from time to time as I need to research a particular issue. Thanks for helping out all us “amateurs!”
A great part of the joy is in the journey:)
Linda, I have been doing a lot of research on my family lines in Virginia and West Virginia in the 1700 & 1800’s and learned that the Scotts-Irish (Scotts who migrated to Northern Ireland and then came here in the 1600-1700’s were the ones who largely settled this area of the country during this time period. A large part of their records were lost in the Irish Wars.
Finally the light has turned on in my head, thank-you Roberta, from now on i am going to ignore those matches that have not completed full genome testing until such time as my education has improved, and clearly i must read the rest of your blog.
Kind Regards
I look at them, especially the HVR2 ones and see if anything looks “good”, particularly location. Otherwise I focus on the full sequence ones. I do know of people who have found their relatives through just the HVR1-HVR2 though, so I don’t discount them entirely. I guess that’s the point, at that level, there is nothing to differentiate the very close relatives from those thousands of years removed.
Excellent piece.
My husband did the full sequence mtDNA a few years ago and a heteroplasmy at 11809 (“Y” which is T or C) kept him from having any FMS matches. I wrote to seven people who matched him on HVR1 and HVR2 and had also done FMS. Four of them responded and three of them would have been exact FMS matches if not for that heteroplasmy – they all had T11809C.
Then FTDNA did SmartMatching and all of those people disappeared. He’s now considered H1ao. So I wrote to FTDNA and asked “what happened?” Your blog explained it – but there’s more to the story. Apparently, T11809C is a haplogroup defining mutation and he “didn’t” have it since he had T11809Y – which is really T11809C sometimes and no 11809 mutation elsewhere. So NOW they apparently fixed it and all of these people are showing as FMS matches with one difference.
Heroplasmy’s are a horse of an entirely different color. They should match either the CRS, the mutated state or the heteroplasmic indicator, such as Y, but they don’t. They match either the CRS which is “no mutation” or the heteroplasmic indicator, such as Y but they don’t match the other state if it is present in a match, such as C or T for Y. And if the heteroplasmy is in the HVR1 or HVR2 region, it’s a mess. I have never written about heteroplasmys but I may someday. If you have a value on your mtdna other than T,A,C or G, then you have a heteroplasmy which is in essence a mutation in process and you have some of two states of DNA.
And MitoSearch can’t handle heteroplasmys at all. The good news is that it shows you differences so you can accommodate it yourself.
Hi
I just found your blog, and it answered a lot of questions I had. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I just did a mtDNA full sequence test for my father from Family Tree DNA, and under the HVR2 results, he was given a result of A240R. from reading the FAQ, I understand that he has a heteroplasmy in his mtDNA. However, I can’t find any detailed information on heteroplasmies. Until you get around to writing about it(And I’m waiting with baited breath 🙂 ) can you recomend any other sites or books to learn more about them, escpecially as to how they can affect his genealogy results?
Thank you for any assistance.
Ryan Unruh
I knew this would happen one day. 🙂
Other than the FAQ at FTDNA, there is very little written. The only thing I know of is an article by Dr. Ann Turner in one of the earlier issues of JOGG. I think it’s called something like “Now You See It, Now You Don’t.” Here’s the link to the site. http://www.jogg.info/
I will blog about it, but it won’t be until later this fall or winter. My plate is really full right now.
Thank you for your prompt response. Whenever I tried to look up Heteroplasmies, I could only find information on the biology of them and mitochondria, nothing on genealogy and how they affect the results given, so this article will be informative for me.
Thanks again
Ryan Unruh
Hi Roberta – you mention the tip calculator for Y-DNA and the fact that FTDNA does not have something similar for mtDNA; is there any way to predict the MRCA for steps from the full sequence test? In my case (H1ad, and being an adoptee with a blank tree) I have one match at 2 steps and 2 matches at 3 steps. How close do you think they may be?
That’s the question I was trying to answer for a client. The answer is anyplace from about 1500 years ago to the Neolithic age. A huge range and not helpful. The research on mutation rates has simply not been done at the level required to do something like a TIP calculator.
While we’re waiting for Roberta’s answer – I can give you two observations from the kits I manage:
I’ve traced my husband’s maternal line back to colonial Virginia ca. 1660. mtDNA haplogroup is H1ao. The “other side of the pond” is almost definitely British Isles (surname GREEN), but where? He has no exact matches but one of his one-step matches has a maternal line that never left Wales. So the connection is at least that far back. His one-step difference is due to a heteroplasmy at 11809 – it’s actually a half-step difference.
My sister’s maternal grandmother was an orphan. I have her father’s name but no surname for her mother. My sister’s mtDNA haplogroup is K1a1b1a (probably the most common Ashkenazi haplogroup). She has 76 one step matches but no exact matches. The key difference appears to be a back mutation at 16223. I would guess that it’s quite recent.
I am mtDNA HV1b2 (another Ashkenazi haplogroup) and I have 36 exact matches. I have traced my maternal line back to my 2nd great grandmother and many of my matches have done the same. We are all from the same area – Poland, Lithuania and Belarus – but that’s as close as we can get.
So, we have my husband with an MRCA at least back in 1630 and my sister with an MRCA that might be her great-grandmother. Both situations are one-step differences.
Hope that helps!
Thanks Roberta and Gaye. I guess I’ll have to wait for an exact match! At least Family Finder, as an autosomal test, seems to offer closer relationships at shorter distances.
“My sister’s maternal grandmother was an orphan.”
Are you an adoptee or a half-sibling?
Roberta, can you clarify please? You said, “Generally a base haplogroup can be reasonably assigned by HVR1 region testing, but not always. Sometimes they change with full sequence testing – so what you think you know may not be the end result.” Does this mean one’s HVR1 haplogroup may not be actually correct and may, when HVR2 & or Mega are completed change to another haplogroup? What about this scenario? I have two women who are supposed to have the same mother, one tested haplogroup U, another haplogroup K, but only the U test have I done the full sequence, on the K test is it only HVR1&2.. is there a chance the K is incorrect, or do I have it right when I assume now that these two likely actually are one each from the two wives of my ancestor rather than both from one wife as previously thought? Thx!
Lisa
Part of the accuracy of the assignment depends on the company and the technology you’re dealing with. As part of the HVR1, FTDNA tests 22 SNP locations so they can estimate the haplogroups accurately, or mostly accurately. Still, I’ve seen some of them change with the FMS test and also with the changes in definitions. Part of the equation is whether there are haplogroup defining mutations in the HVR1 region or not. If you tested at Ancestry, all bets are off. I’ve seen people with exactly the same mutations, and not hand entered info, be assigned to different base haplogroups. The bottom line Lisa is that you need the full sequence to be sure.
Lesson learned…the test I’m questioning that is giving us ‘third wife’ results Is indeed at ancestry and comes back as haplogroup H whereas the others I have tested at ftdna are U and K. Now that I see this reply, I’m going to go look at that in comparison to the two we have done at ftdna (one FMS and one HVR1&2) from the two known wives to see if this ancestry.com dna match happens to match one of those two. THX!! I’m baaaaccckkkk I LOVE YOU ROBERTA!! YOU ARE RIGHT!! the ancestry reported haplogroup H is indeed an exact match to the HVR1 & 2 of our U reported line at FTDNA!! GEEZ–Can Ancestry GET ANYTHING RIGHT?!?!? LOL THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Add on..this from your linked article to my earlier comment…
“First, we are talking about we usually call mtDNA subclades, not haplogroups. The basic haplogroups have been set in stone for years now. Of course, it can be confusing. If U is a macrohaplogroup or superhaplogroup, then U8 is considered a haplogroup and U8b a subclade. However, it is now known that K is part of U8b; so you have haplogroup below a subclade on the mtDNA tree
So, can my K haplogroup female have a possibility of being U5b2a1a1a on full sequence testing as is her sister who we did the full sequence test for?
The only way to know for sure is to test one of the sisters at the full sequence level. It’s unlikely, but you just don’t know for sure without the full sequence test. You’ll dealing with educated estimates – and some of them very good. The only other thing you can do is to ask Bill Hurst who is the Hap K/U guru.
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Just finding this blog entry, and I have to say, the exceptions do make it interesting!
For example, my maternal uncle and I both had the FMS test and FF, and the latter confirms that we are indeed uncle/nephew (which was not in doubt, just noted for clarity). On the FMS test, neither one of us shows up as a match with the other at all. In fact, I can force it using the advanced matching, by including both FF and FMS, so that he shows up in my matches, and under FMS it says simply “x” (=”not a match”).
In fact, I have compared our FMS data myself and there is just one mutation difference between us. As in your case above, that one happens to be one of the three defining my subgroup, J1c8… So my uncle is called just J1c with two “extra mutations,” and the “smartmatching” refuses to consider the possibility that we could share a common ancestor anywhere in genealogical time, since we are technically in different groups! I pointed out to FTDNA that it is probably more parsimonious to consider him J1c8 with a back-mutation, and after getting bounced up their support tree a bit, they responded that they’re not making any more manual changes until they have upgraded their older mtDNA tree to the newer one…
The way I figure it, one of us probably has spurious “matches” under mtDNA due to being forced into the ‘wrong’ haplogroup on that technicality, and that is a bummer… All I need now is another known relative on the same maternal line to test FMS, and see what the tiebreaker says 😉
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I don’t know how I missed this earlier — but thank you, Roberta!! What sent me on maybe a misguided year-long search regarding another HVR2 match was the fact that back around 7 years ago, I matched at HVR2 at FTDNA another woman who turned out to also have my maternal line third great grandmother We had never met before, and we could compare ancestral notes — we were from the same maternal line family. So I applied this limited knowledge to another person in the US who also matched both of us on HVR2. There were only 7 of us in total. I spent over a year trying to connect us — no luck. Another thing that was interesting — the 3 of us in the United States matched 4 others currently living in Finland. We had no knowledge of family connections in Finland. I am U2e at FTDNA and U2e1a1 at 23andMe.
This also explains why when my husband took the HVR2 mtdna test at FTDNA about 3 years ago, that he only had two matches!
Now, I am wondering what is the best route (currently) to do mtdna comparisons!! I do not have any sisters or living maternal relatives.
23andMe only uses probes on certain haplogroup defining locations and does not test the entire mitochondria. So you really can’t compare 23andme’s haplogroups to Family Tree DNAs where they test every location in the mitochondria if you purchase the full sequence. Plus, I don’t believe the two companies are using the same “version” of mtDNA assignment charts. Perhaps the person at 23andMe would test at Family Tree DNA so you can compare apples and apples.
I actually have not compared my mtdna ratings at FTDNA and 23andMe because 23andMe does not directly connect you to people you might match on mtdna. If you are comparing genomes (and I know you already know all this), they just put you in a group matching situation.
Sorry I didn’t make it clearer — the other person who matched me was on FTDNA HVR2 and I was trying to help him find a connecting lineage. And this was before 23andMe began offering testing, so was not connected to any results there.
My mtDNA haplogroup is J1c2, confirmed by my HVR1 and HVR2 results (including the definitive A188G), and I have just received my coding region results from FTDNA, which I thought would assign me to some sub-clade, but not so. I have 36 mutations listed in my coding region results, and have checked them against Phylotree.org-mtDNA subtree R, where the defining mutations for every subclade of J1c are listed, but my mutations aren’t in there. I am beginning to feel like a mutant or an alien!
Harry
That’s just normal. J1c2 IS a subclade:)
Roberta, I have a heteroplasmy on HVR1 (T16093Y). Family Tree DNA says my mtDNA Haplogroup is H7c1. I have quite a few exact matches with 0 genetic distance. How do I know if my matches have the same heteroplasmy as I do?
You’ll have to ask them:( They will either match the heteroplasmy exactly or the the CRS value.
Okay thank you.
According to FTDNA, I have the same heteroplasmy. By any chance can you trace your lineage back to a woman by the name of Patience Reeve in the late 1600’s? I’m really curious to see if there are any other H7c1 folks out there who are related to me.
Yovonne
Roberta, can you clarify what “genetic distance” means on FTDNA? If I match HVR1 + HVR2 + Coding Sequence, do I care about the matches that are at a genetic distance of 1, 2, 3?
Genetic distance means the number of mutations difference between you and the other person. The higher the distance, the further back in time to your common ancestor.
So if I have several matches on all parts (HVR1+HVR2+CR) at 0 genetic distance, within how many generations would I expect to find a common ancestor?
The great thing about Family Tree DNA is that they provide answers to questions like this. Under the Resources Tab, click on learning center. Then type the words “mitochondrial DNA” and you’ll see a variety of topics. Among them is the answer to your question. https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/mtdna-testing/generations-traced/
Is there a guideline of how many generations are equal to each genetic distance? I thought I saw somewhere that a distance of 1 = 150 years?
The great thing about Family Tree DNA is that they provide answers to questions like this. Under the Resources Tab, click on learning center. Then type the words “mitochondrial DNA” and you’ll see a variety of topics. Among them is the answer to your question. https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/mtdna-testing/generations-traced/
But that FAQ doesn’t explain what the “genetic distance” means on that page. I don’t know what the difference is between a match on 1+2+CR at 1 genetic distance versus 1+2+CR at 3 genetic distances.
Genetic distance is the number of mutations difference between you and the other person.
We rrcently received results from a full sequence mtdna test and FTDNA says the information is from 10,0000 years ago, not 2000 years ago as stated in this article. Even with the subclade h1e1b, staff said it is 10,000 year old. We are very disappointed and would not have ordered the test. We are intersted in 1,000-2,000 years…NOT 10,0000 years.
Haplogroups range in time and do reach back thousands of years. However, your haplogroup, H1e1b is a daughter haplogroup of H. H is 20-25 thousands years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_H_(mtDNA) But, H1 is younger, and H1e is younger yet and H1e1 is younger yet and H1e1b is younger yet. According to the Copernican paper by Doron Behar, H1e1b is about 4700 years old. Your mutations in addition to the haplogroup defining mutations also tell us more about your ancestors. If you are interested, this is covered in the Personalized DNA Reports available through Family Tree DNA. I write those reports as a contractor for Family Tree DNA.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally an explanation of a challenging subject in laymen’s terms! Additionally, your writing style is fluid, easy to read, and includes touches of humor in the midst of a serious informational topic. I’ve read so many articles and explanations on this topic, yet yours is the most accessible and most clear, without dumbing it down.
So thank you.
(and why on earth do people get so spun up about non-related issues! Even as a grammar nerd and college english professor I can see that it’s a matter of style and word choice- and appreciate it without rigidity.)
Hello there, I am hoping you can still see this since the article was several years back. I recently had my results confirmed that I am A2w. That Hablogroup doesn’t have the amount of digits that your does and I have no idea how to read this. I am adopted and I am really trying to find answers to my questions that i have about where I come from. I only matched with one person on coding region. Several on HVR1 but that could go as far back as 10000 years? So I guess I will not even look at those. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
HVR1: 16111T, 16187T, 16223T, 16290T, 16319A, 16362C
HVR2: 64T, 73G, 146C, 153G, 235G, 263G, 309.1C, 315.1C, 522-, 523-, 573.1C, 573.2C
Coding Region: 663G, 750G, 1438G, 1736G, 2706G, 3766C, 4248C, 4769G, 4824G, 6221C, 7028T, 7124G,
8027A, 8794T, 8860G, 8896A, 9590G, 11016A, 11719A, 12007A, 12705T, 14016A, 14766T, 15326G
Looking at these numbers out of context isn’t helpful. I do consulting and mtDNA reports, which sounds like it might be something you want to consider. http://www.dnaxplain.com/shop/features.aspx
I’m still not understanding completely. I understand how important it is to do the full coding region, which I have done. I’m trying to use DNA with FF and mtDNA to locate my grandmother’s birth parents. So I have a match, she and I are both K1a2a but then it says genetic distance of 1. So how far back and I looking for our common ancestor? I have no parents names to go on, so this is tough, but it would be so nice to start with someone and trace down from her. Thanks for any help
I am writing an article on genetic distance for mitochondrial DNA.
Why would I be one genetic distance from my own mother ? One of my sisters is also one genetic distance from my mother and TWO genetic distances from me. My mother and her male cousin are exact matches. All these are at the full HVR1, HVR2 and Coding Regionss level on FTdna. If mutations only occur infrequently, how can this be explained ?
Mutations can happen any time. You may have a heteroplasmy involved. https://dna-explained.com/2016/06/29/concepts-genetic-distance/
Roberta, I did the Full MT at FTDNA and am “only” H1. I was expecting some subgroup designations since I went whole-hog, so to speak. Was that an incorrect assumption?
Yes, some people are just H1. New clades are sometimes formed. You could be included in a future subclade. Be sure to join the H1 project.
I am a haplogroup B2 and tested the full sequence. I found one match in the whole world. However, there is a possibility she is not even a match for me. Correct? Btw is this a blog for DNA or grammar just got confused for a moment.
Thanks for the article, very useful and easy to understand…!
Great article as all of your always are.
Roberta I have a question.
My uncle was tested at 23 and me and was given haplogroup of R-L48. he is now deceased and cannot test further unless I request his daughters send me his raw data to upload to FTDNA for further testing. but…
I had my male 1st cousin, (nephew to the above uncle) to agree to test at FTDNA and his haplogroup came back as R-M269. We don’t know his father’s Haplogroup was or any of the other siblings since they are all gone.
Further, my genealogy research partners (male) all have R-m269 at FTDNA and we have proven our connections as relations, via hard copy documents to our earliest ancestor.
So my question is this… can a haplogroup mutate back to the previous one it mutated from? there are mutations of R-M269 to R-L48 decades ago .. could my uncle’s brothers ( full siblings as far as I know) have haplogroups that varied between R-L48 & R-M269? Or could a brother have inherited one haplogoup while another inherited another? I’m a bit confused, and I realize I need to study the subject more.
It’s frustrating that I have only one relation above me that was tested and no chance for others to be.
Rosemary
It’s not a matter of mutating back. It’s a matter of testing that has, or has not occurred at different levels. R-M269 is an umbrella haplogroup that includes many subgroups, of which R-L48 is one. By the way, transferring his file from 23andMe to FTDNA only works for autosomal DNA – not Y DNA – because the Y DNA at 23andMe is only sampled, not tested with the same test as at FTDNA. FTDNA estimates everyone’s haplogroup but more indepth tests are available. These articles should help. https://dna-explained.com/2015/02/26/haplogroups-and-the-three-brothers/ and https://dna-explained.com/2013/01/24/what-is-a-haplogroup/ and https://dna-explained.com/2014/03/24/haplogroup-comparisons-between-family-tree-dna-and-23andme/ and https://dna-explained.com/2014/06/23/haplogroups-snps-and-family-group-confusion/
If this doesn’t help, ask again.
Roberta, I’m late to the party, but I have a question about possibilities in your following paragraph:
“Dr. Behar in his “Copernican Reassessment of the Mitochondrial DNA Tree,” which has become the virtual Bible of mtDNA, estimates that the J1c2f haplogroup defining mutation at location 9055 occurred about 2000 years ago, plus or minus another 3000 years, which means my ancestor who had that mutation could have lived as long ago as 5000 years.”
Since the estimate for location 9055 is “…about 2000 years ago, plus or minus another 3000 years…,” does this also mean that your ancestor with the mutation, might have only been one or two generations before you or any identified MRCA with the mutation? Or, that some other tester in a future generation might be the first within her line with this mutation?
Statistically, yes, but in reality, no. We know this because the people with that mutations are scattered in various locations, which would not have occurred if that mutation were recent.
I am about to add a mito test to my Family Tree DNA portfolio currently consisting of a Y-37 and autosomal (Family Finder). I have already determined my haplogroup (T2a1b1a1) through NatGeo’s Geno 2.0 who uses Helix Labs as their testing source. They, however, refuse to provide further testing details for use on MitoSearch, etc. Should I spend the extra $100 for fms? Also, you said your hvr1&hvr2 match with “f” missing from haplo was 2000 years ago when split from its parent group “plus or minus 3000 years”. Then you state your in-common ancestor must have been 2000-5000 years old. But wouldn’t plus “or minus” mean that it could have been much more recent since our current era is within that range?
Thanks,
David
Mitosearch only shows the HVR1 and HVR2, so the coding region won’t matter for that. However, the coding region is really important for matching, which you do receive from FTDNA, as well at the matches maps. And yes, current era is within that range, but we know that it can’t be yesterday, for example, so we sometimes know the bottom of that range, while statistically possible isn’t accurate.