MTDNA

So today I had a little moment of Zen.

23andAncestry provides you with an MTDNA haplogroup when you sign up with them to have your DNA done. The MTDNA is DNA that is passed down from mother to her children only.  Like the YDNA haplogroup, this is useful for finding deep history.

I have been lucky enough to have been blessed with a pretty rare MTDNA Haplogroup.

This help me because my GGG Grandmother, Mary Matilda Robertson is a member of the Haplogroup as well.  And so was her mother, and her maternal grandmother.

This means I can go to 23andMe or GEDMATCH and pull out all my matches that are also this rare haplogroup.

Then I can contact all of the people and see if anyone can give me any insight - this will mean they will have had to have done some serious maternal research.

However, if nothing turns up I am not done. I will then cross compare their matches with people that match me. Those crossover matches may not have direct maternal lines to our MCRA, but they still could be related to us both, even if I do not know their MTDNA haplogroup.  That is because once there is a father son relationship, the MTDNA haplogroup is lost. For example, Mary Matilda, had a daughter,  Arvilla Fenters. She was the same haplo group. She married James Davis. That means her son, Charles Davis was her haplogroup. However, none of Charles children will inherit that Haplogroup, they will instead get his wife's MTDNA.

Making generational charts of all of these matches might point me in the direction of getting rid of this brick wall.