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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Gadget on Friday 14 December 18 10:13 GMT (UK)
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I've traced my maternal line to the mid-1700s but before that it gets very murky; lost in the upper Dee valley and Llyn Tegid, Merionethshire.
Would an mtDNA test tell me anything more that might help me go back further (i.e pointers for paper trail) or does it just give me my ancient historical roots?
Gadget
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This is from the FTDNA website (and doesn't sound too useful):
mtDNA testing will not be able to identify specific countries that your maternal ancestors came from. mtDNA mutates slowly which allows you to find out ancient information (such as your haplogroup), and will not help you learn about your more recent (within the past 200-500 years) origins. However, you can use mtDNA results with your personal genealogy research to contact your matches to find out more about where your common ancestors may be from.
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Thanks, Ruskie :)
I did a bit of googling and many of the pieces about it are nebulous (new 'in' word). I'm not sure that ancient origins will be any help . I have quite a few matches that are from that area but I also have other lines from there as well. I'm still doing those the clustering/cross tabs/venn diagrams (Leeds Method) but the matches get a bit mixed so far. I'll just have to do more research/contacting :-\
Gadget
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Gadget, you're not actually allowed to say or use the word nebulous, you just have to mouth it. You are certainly up-to-date with the prime minister's travels.
Martin
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It's in my DNA, Martin ;D
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I missed out the 't' so will modify the header ::)
I see that FTDNA has a special offer ($139) for the full mt, which includes 'More refined results for genealogical purposes'. Is it worth it? I've not really got any Christmas present wishes at the moment.
mtDNA Full Sequence test will test all three regions providing you with a more refined mtDNA haplogroup and matches list. The Full Sequence test is recommended for those more interested in genealogy and working with a matches list.
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Martin. Thank goodness you've made a quick recovery.
:)
Gadget. Well done for correcting your own mistakes.
:) :)
Margaret
P.s. I dislike the grammar and spelling police as much as you, Martin, especially when so many people use mobile phones to send messages. Easy to make a slip with the finger, or have a dodgy auto correct.
M
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Yes, Miss ;D ;D ;D
PS - In the 1970s-8s, I was a project manager, in charge of 8 programmers - a program mistake could mean a day's lost work, I think Martin comes from that line, However, Logic is the most important attribute.
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I have read that the MtDNA test is the least useful. Not sure of the reasons why ...
If you fancy treating yourself or want someone else to treat you to a nice present Gadget, I'm sure you will have fun with the results even if they don't lead you where you hope.
Thinking about it, there are a lot of DNA threads on rootschat and I don't recall reading that anyone has taken an MtDNA test .... I don't know if lack of testers here are a reflection of lack of testers elsewhere in the world, which may mean you have very few matches, especially if your family lines remained in Wales. :-\
Still, I'm sure you would gain something from the test.
Added: Wasn't it MtDNA that connected that American chap to Richard the third? It must have some uses. :)
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I see that FTDNA has a special offer ($139) for the full mt, which includes 'More refined results for genealogical purposes'. Is it worth it? I've not really got any Christmas present wishes at the moment.
Hi, I have done the full mtDNA test, and at this stage its not been very useful. I only have a handful of matches and they are quite far out in time (high genetic distances), so don't stand much chance of linking up to them. I am therefore looking at it as a long term investment, in the hope that as more people test it will be become more useful.
Richard
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Thank you both for further comments :)
I think I'll do some more clustering among the matches that I have. The furthest back I get for certain is a 3 x great (Elizabeth) who was born in 1781. I know her mother's name was Catherine and the full name of her father but just can't find a marriage for them or a suitable birth for Catherine. We then, probably, get into patronymics.
She would be my 4 x ggrandmother, so I'm looking for 5th cousins (+/- with removes).
:-\
Gadget
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A short answer is "No"! Perhaps because MtDNA changes very little over time, possibly taking 1000 years between a "genetic distance 0" and a "genetic distance 1" match, although there can be exceptions. Another way to look at it within paper trail times is check your matches along your maternal lineage and see if any have exactly the same MtDNA Haplogroup...you may be lucky, they should have, given the period between changes, but how often is it displayed in Gedmatch? Hopefully you'll have many matches in FTDNA, but don't be disappointed to discover not a single paper trail verifiable match, despite your having, possibly, a few pages of "genetic distance 0" matches. It's much the same with Y-DNA. So we're stuck with what we can find from atDNA and current paper records. FTDNA name projects might be productive; area projects and of course specific MtDNA projects perhaps worth joining and asking coordinators "what could/should I do next?"
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Thanks, squawki :)
I'm not sure that it would be a good investment unless there are significant improvements and matches in the next 2 decades. I'm in my 70s now ;D ;D ;D
P.S. I have my data on Ancestry, My Heritage, FTDNA and Gedmatch
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You could look upon it as an investment for your family. Perhaps with your having done all the ground work, one of them may continue with your project. Wishful thinking, perhaps and in the end you could just choose to be mildly self indulgent and treat yourself to the FTDNA works since if you have tested with them already, they have your sample and with coupons/discount you could think of it as a xmas/birthday/whatever you choose present to yourself. Go for it!
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You would be highly unlikely to get a match that would help you with this line. Even if you have an exact mtDNA match with the highest resolution test (the full mtDNA sequence test) you could still potentially share common ancestors over 1000 years ago. Also remember that mtDNA only traces the direct maternal line. It doesn't represent all the ancestors on your mother's side. See the ISOGG Wiki article on mtDNA tests:
https://isogg.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA_tests (https://isogg.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA_tests)
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Thank you :)
I am aware of what you say. It is just my direct maternal line that I was interested in.
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I've posted about this before, don't know where, don't know when, but never mind, when you get old people forgive you for repeating yourself.
The best thing I can say about mtDNA testing - i.e. testing your direct female line back from your mother - is that an interesting pattern of ancestry can emerge. Some of my closest mtDNA matches on FTDNA have an earliest known mitochondrial ancestor (ancestress?) in northern Ireland, in Co. Antrim or Down, with a Scottish surname. What the Americans would call "Scotch-Irish". My earliest known mtDNA forebear Nancy Howat was in Belfast in the 1790s. And my other close matches are either Norwegian or Norwegian-American. My mtDNA haplogroup is J1c2.
The Oxford geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer has a map in his book "The Blood of the Isles" showing J people moving from Norway into Scotland in the Neolithic period. So I believe my mitochondrial line probably derives from that ancient migration to Scotland, or of course it might be more recent, from settlement by Norwegian Vikings just over a thousand years ago.
It's amazing to think that the ultimate J ancestor ("Jasmine" to Bryan Sykes of Oxford Ancestors) was a woman who lived in the vicinity of what's now Syria many millennia ago, given that she has so many descendants in north and north-west Europe.
Harry
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Sorry to come to this so late, but here's my experience.
My biggest brick wall now is my maternal grandmother, who was adopted. I hoped an mtDNA result would help so I did the full test. It has only been marginally helpful.
- No matches have proved useful (so far).
- When I look at present location of matches, the two most common countries are Ireland and Finland. I had thought that maybe my grandmother's uncertain mother may have been from Scotland, so that has made me more doubtful of that.
- More useful was the earliest known ancestor of my matches, and they are overwhelmingly in Finland, and a few in Ukraine, suggesting my haplogroup migrated from Turkey through the Caucasus area to Finland and then into UK, perhaps Ireland. Perhaps that will be useful one day.
That's as much as I have learned, and it is precious little, though it may perhaps lead me to follow up distant aDNA matches from Finland (I have one or two). I have tested at FTDNA amd Ancestry, and transferred to Gedmatch, My Heritage and Geni. I'm inclined to think a test with 23andMe would have been a better option for tracing my grandmother's line, though you never know.
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Hope it's ok to revive an older topic. Did a search on mtDNA and have found the replies here very helpful.
I am trying to find the biological parents of my mother's Grandma Annie (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=823003.0) and have pretty well exhausted traditional methods. I can find no record of her prior to her marriage in 1891.
Was thinking that doing (and/or getting mum to do) an mtDNA test would be the answer, however I am gathering from the replies here that it will be next to useless?
For the past few weeks I have been wading through the list of DNA matches and checking shared matches and using the little color dots to assign matches to other ancestral lines or meeting 'above' Grandma Annie (ie along her husband's ancestral line) etc.
Has been an interesting exercise (given that all her ggparents came to Aus in the 1850s, pretty well brickwalls across the board for their roots - and have managed to make headway on some at last!) and I appear to be left with one small group of shared matches that I, nor they, can find any link at all. So have just started to explore this.
Is it going to help if I get more known descendants of Grandma Annie to take the regular DNA tests? Mum (84yo) has one younger cousin who I am hoping to take it. Is this better than getting one of my sisters to do it?
Reading tonight that different people get different amounts of DNA from ancestors, I am thinking that the more 'knowns' the better? At the moment there is only Mum from her generation and 2 cousins from Generations below mum who meet at Grandma Annie & Grandpa Joe.
Would really appreciate any thoughts on what will help to improve the chances of finding her parents.
Warm Regards
Leanne
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Hi Leanne
Yes, try and get as many descendants of Grandma Anne as you can to take the test. Also go over the trees of your group of matches to see if they have made any errors.
Gadget
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Thanks for replying Gadget!
I had a real chuckle at your comment "go over the trees of your group of matches to see if they have made any errors"... perhaps it is just my relations... I can't believe how 'slack' people are in verifying information in their trees! My matches trees are full of errors... that I know about.
Have started making lots of little trees of my own so that I can duplicate trees of my matches AND make sure I get their information correct.
Every now and then I come across someone totally unrelated to me who I can tell is fastidious, and I lean on / borrow from their work as much as possible.
Will ask all my siblings to take tests. Fingers crossed a few will do so
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ooo another thought...
I am one of 8 children, and 4 of us are 'from' my mother's side (in physical appearance) and 4 are 'from' Dad's side.
Was about to ask if it is best to focus on getting those who are from Mum's side to do it (given that some are so not interested in our ancestry that I will need to offer to pay for it), then it occured that it would be interesting to see if they match mum or dad's side more (both Mum & Dad have had DNA tests done).
Thinking out loud and probably a little too late to be repeating what goes through this brain :o ;)
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If you are in contact with you little group, maybe all of you could download your DNA files and upload to a site that has a chromosome browser*. You could then see how you match. Also, you might pick up others.
* My Heritage, Gedmatch, etc.
Add - to download, go to Settings top right of your DNA page, then scroll down to Actions
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I like My Heritage, but there is now a cost to unlock some features including the Chromosome browser (currently $29). :)
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Hi Gadget,
There are 2 in the group (mum's & 1 other) who are on GED match. Spent some time there last night trying the different tests / match options and got totally confused! (Will post separately about that after checking here for questions already asked that may answer my 'issues' ;-)
Ruskie,
Just having a look at My heritage now. When you say you like it, do you mind letting me know how / why / for what? It looks to me to be another option to Ancestry, and I want to be careful as I have a habit of confusing myself! It definitely looks cheaper...
Or is it for the DNA that you like it?
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I don’t have Ancestry so can’t comment on similarities. I tested with FTDNA years ago.
I find My Heritage chromosome browser useful, similarly auto clusters, and the site in general is set out well and easy to find your way around. If you can afford to spend the extra $29 to unlock the features, you may find them useful. :)
I am not recommending that you take the My Heritage DNA test, just that you upload your raw data from other tests to My Heritage, and pay the $29 so you can use all the features (which up until a year or so ago used to be free). :-\
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Thanks heaps Ruskie!
Uploading now. Am at such a confused brick wall with Grandma Annie, willing to try anything at all :)
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Thanks heaps Ruskie!
Uploading now. Am at such a confused brick wall with Grandma Annie, willing to try anything at all :)
It certainly won’t hurt will it. ;)
Good luck!