Yo mama! Maternal line roots

The X chromosome is full of mysteries and information. Defined here is inherited by both biological male's and female's. Mtdna is that single direct female ancestor which we all inherit, for alot of us there may be results that are obvious and for some surprising. As much as we try to define what our last known direct female ancestor looked like, coming from such a mixed ex-colony the possibilities are endless. Your great-great grandmother can be very white but her maternal line be African because perhaps HER great-great grandmother was an African woman, and vice versa. Refer to Tools for Finding your Roots for which DNA test would give you Mtdna information.

A few years back I averaged out the continental frequency of these maternal lines using the results of 309 of my Dominican relatives. The results where very much in line with DNA studies done in the Dominican Republic. Details here for the amateur one I did myself.

The interesting thing about maternal lines is that for some we can pinpoint exact locations or regions in which they have the highest frequency, pointing perhaps to its origin.

Mtdna	Location of oldest direct maternal ancestor	Continental Origin	Possibly Region(s)
U6a3	San Francisco de macoris	Africa	[Northwest Africa] Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Ghana,
A2	Yamasa, Monteplata	Amerindian	Arawak/ Dominican Republic
L3e1a2	La Vega	Africa	South-Central Africa, Congo, Angola, Mozambique
H2a5a	Puertoplata	Europe	Basque Region of Spain/France
L3d3a	Villa Jaragua, Neiba	Africa	Southeast Africa, Angola, Zambia, South-Africa, Malawi
L3e3b	San juan de la maguana	Africa	Upper West-Central Africa, Chad, Burkina faso
L3ef1b	Hato Mayor	Africa	Northwest Africa, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau
C1b	Santo Domingo	Amerindian	Arawak/Dominican Republic
U3	San Pedro de macoris	Europe	Anatolia, Eastern Europe
L0a2a2	Valverde Mao	Africa	Southeast Africa, Mozambique
L1c2b1	La Vega	Africa	South-central Africa, Angola, South-Africa
L3d1-5	Santiago	Africa	Upper West and East Africa, Chad, Guinea-Bissau
U6b1	Jarabacoa	North Africa	Canary Islands, Guanche people
L1b1a	San Cristobal	Africa	Lower Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Togo, Ghana
B2	Bonao	Amerindian	Arawak/Dominican Republic

There are a few mtdna studies done, most of which are small, there is a large one that was just done but the Mtdna results have not yet been released, an abstract of the upcoming paper.

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