@ Jill Eaton
Hello,
I have had a look at your results again and done some more digging around and although I am not totally convinced it may be the case that Living DNA have a point.
I had said I was not convinced that both the Ancestry result and the Living DNA results could be correct as they are on different branches of the Phylogenetic tree of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups as referenced here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_DNA_haplogroupFrom this we see that haplogroup H is clearly on a separate branch to U and hence my original thoughts.
However I have now found reference in that article to “Since a single mutation may define a haplogroup, the total number of "European mtDNA haplogroups" – even if they are defined only as those mentioned above and their descendant clades”
So in short Living DNA’s argument that their test is more detailed could be correct and they could have picked up elements that move your haplogroup from H to U and could be correct as both are branches of haplogroup R i.e. haplogroup R is the parent of both groups. This is a new “science” and they are constantly moving things around so I guess there could be more changes in the future. Whilst I was prepared for analyses to move up and down branches I was not expecting them to jump branches but that article does give an explanation how that could arise.
Not sure if that explanation satisfies you (it would have been more reassuring if Living DNA had given that explanation rather than the anodyne explanation they gave).
I said I would give you a name of someone who might be willing to comment on this and I have done that by PM.
I know this has been a frustrating journey for you waiting for Living DNA to pull their finger out but I hope you feel you have made some progress, it has certainly been informative for me (although I realise that was the initial intended purpose).
Hope it goes a bit more smoothly from now on.
David
