Flanders-Flemish DNA Project
Interpreting mtDNA Results: Concrete Example
Conventional genealogy revealed my maternal lineage. My mother was Marie-Louise Girardin, born in 1918. She was one of two daughters of Josephine De Maseneer (1893-1945) who was the daughter of Maria Ludovica Verbruggen born in 1866. Maria Ludovica Verbruggen was the daughter of Rosalia Catharina Kerremans (1836-1903) who was the daughter of Anne Maria De Greve born in 1792. She was the daughter of Anna Catherina De Coster born in 1762. Anna Catherina De Coster was the daughter of Johanna Maria Hoemans married to Petrus De Coster. Hence, my great, great, great, great, great-grandmother was Johanna Maria Hoemans, probably born in the early part of the eighteenth century.
Testing my mtDNA that was inherited from my mother, and hence from my maternal gr gr gr gr gr grandmother, I can trace back, actually all the way to my ancestral Eve (full details are provided in Flemish DNA and Ancestry).
My mtDNA test results are shown in the Table to the right. The first part shows that my maternal haplogroup is H*. Mitochondrial haplogroup H is a predominantly European haplogroup that arrived in Europe about 30,000 years ago, and participated in a population expansion beginning approximately 20,000 years ago. Today, about 40% of all mitochondrial lineages in Europe are classified as haplogroup H. This haplogroup, which is rather uniformly distributed throughout Europe played a major role in the population of Europe. Descendant lineages of the original haplogroup H appears in the Near East as a result of migration.
My HVR1 indicates that compared to CRS, my mtDNA contains a C in position 16,519. This is quite common. My HVR2 sequencing of my mtDNA shows three differences with CRS, namely 131C, 263G and 315.1C (the latter implies an insertion of a C at position 315). The 263G and 315.1C are mutations that are quite common. However, so far the mutation 131C appears to be quite rare. This finding is very common for mtDNA analyses: about one in 2 samples tested gives a mtDNA profile that is not published yet or has not yet been observed in a population. So far in public databases there are only 13 records that contain the combination of 131C, 263G and 315.1C.
HVR1 haplogroup H is shown with an “asterisk”, meaning that this mtDNA could not be classified in any of the sub-clades of the H haplogroups. H* is not a true sub-clade but a group that can be described as known to belong to the H clade but lacking the coding region mutations for the (so far) accepted sub-clades. The wait is for science to find new sub-clades. H* is spread throughout Europe and the ancestors of H* haplogroups can be traced from Finland to Italy and from Britain to Romania.
Sample mtDNA results
Other Sample mtDNA results
