By: Katy Rowe-Schurwanz
Learn how mtDNA can connect you to maternal ancestors when records fall short and how to combine it with traditional research and other DNA tests for powerful results.
While records may have been lost, not kept, or just aren’t found yet about the women in your family tree, mtDNA does not require records in order to make connections.
Editor’s Note: This is part four of a five-part series about what mtDNA is, what mtDNA can tell you, and how to apply mtDNA results to your genealogy. Continue reading the series here:
- Part 1: What is mtDNA?
- Part 2: Exploring the Full Mitochondrial Genome: Understanding the Inheritance of Mitochondria
- Part 3: Interpreting mtDNA Test Results
Combining mtDNA with traditional genealogy research
DNA testing is not the end-all and be-all for discovering your matrilineal ancestors and building out your family tree. Genetic genealogy is one tool for genealogical research, but it must be used in combination with traditional genealogical research. Genetic genealogy gives you hints for where to find the answers, but may not necessarily state the answers flat out.
Mitochondrial DNA testing can provide you with direction for your research. Regardless of what generation your matrilineal brick wall is in, mtDNA can help you break through and discover ancestors beyond that brick wall by connecting you with others who share a common matrilineal ancestor with you.
By testing multiple descendants of a matrilineal ancestor, you can confirm if your paper trail is correct. If those descendants match each other, the paper trail is correct. If they don’t match each other, someone’s research may be off and more investigation may be necessary.
Your matches’ shared family trees can help you find the connection you need to break your brick wall. Your Earliest Known Maternal Ancestor may be in their tree. A sister or maternal aunt or other matrilineal ancestor or descendant may be in their tree. You can use traditional genealogy research to further build out family trees of matches that don’t include your earliest known maternal ancestor and potentially build a tree out that connects your ancestors to discover who your shared ancestor was.
Make sure you connect with local genealogical societies for the areas your ancestors are from. These societies may be able to help you discover more records and/or connect you with others who may descend or are doing research on the same ancestors.
Combining mtDNA with Y-DNA for genealogy research
In most situations, Y-DNA and mtDNA match lists for the same individual will not overlap since their inheritance patterns do not overlap. Y-DNA tests the Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son. mtDNA tests the mitochondria which is passed down from mother to child.
However, there are benefits of combining mtDNA and Y-DNA testing to discover more about ancestors in your family tree.
Autosomal DNA testing will provide results for any ancestral line in your family tree. But autosomal DNA goes through random recombination and you’re only inheriting a random half of the DNA your parents inherited from their parents. Eventually, the DNA has been divided and recombined so much that you haven’t inherited much if any from ancestors several generations back in your family tree.
Neither Y-DNA nor mtDNA divide or recombine as they’re passed down from one generation to the next, so Y-DNA testing patrilineal descendants of each male ancestor in your tree and mtDNA testing matrilineal descendants of each ancestor in your tree allows you to discover more about your ancestors that you can’t through autosomal DNA.
Autosomal DNA is going to tell you the percentage of ancestral populations that you inherited from the past few generations. You might have ancestors from a specific population, region, or country that you don’t inherit matching autosomal DNA for.
Because Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups can point you to a specific location where your ancestors were from, you can use these tests to discover all the locations of all of your ancestors, so you can confirm heritage and lineages not found in your autosomal DNA. For example, you may have a family legend that your 4th great grandfather or grandmother was Native American. That may be too far back in time to show up in your myOrigins results with the Family Finder, but through Y-DNA and mtDNA testing of the right ancestral lines you may be able to confirm those Native American roots.
Y-DNA and mtDNA testing each ancestral line in your family tree will also connect you to matches with common ancestors on those lines, which can confirm and/or expand your paper trail.
Combining mtDNA with autosomal DNA for genealogy research
Right now, which test level you match at is the best way to determine which matches are the closest to you. And after the Mitotree release, you’ll be able to utilize Discover tools like the Time Tree to determine which of your mtFull Sequence matches are closer.
If you’ve done both a mtFull Sequence and a Family Finder, you may be able to narrow it down a bit more through the Advanced Matches tool.
The Advanced Matches tool lets you search your match lists to find testers who match you across multiple types of tests. So you can search for people who match you on both the Family Finder and mtFull Sequence.
This may mean that your common direct maternal ancestor is in a pretty recent generation. However, because the Family Finder looks at all of your ancestral lines, it could also mean that you match that person on two different lines—more closely on a line that isn’t your direct maternal line and then more distantly on your direct maternal line.
After discovering a name or names in the Advanced Matches searches, you will need to examine match trees and use Family Finder tools like Family Matching, the Chromosome Browser, the Matrix, and the In Common With/Not In Common With filters to confirm that a match that shows up in Advanced Matches matches you only on your direct maternal line.
Exploring mtDNA projects on FamilyTreeDNA and how they aid research
FamilyTreeDNA Group Projects are an amazing resource available for all testers. Group Projects are research groups comprised of volunteer administrators and testers who are working towards the same goal. They are a wealth of information and knowledge that can help you use your results, break your brick walls, and learn where your ancestors were from.
Maternal lineage projects
mtDNA lineage projects look at individuals with or suspected of having the same maternal line. They are designed to study direct maternal lineages regardless of name changes, as mtDNA is passed down from genetic females to their male and female offspring.
mtDNA haplogroup projects
mtDNA haplogroup projects focus on mtDNA haplogroups or subclades, their origins, and their spread through time and geographic regions.
mtDNA geographical projects
mtDNA Geographical Projects look at the overall mtDNA profiles of a specific region, such as a village, county, or an entire country. The purpose of these projects is to show the tested makeup of that area.
Dual geographical projects
Dual geographical projects combine Y-DNA and mtDNA, and often Family Finder, for a comprehensive look at the genetic ancestry of a location from an entire country or geographic region down to a county, city, or shtetl.
About the Author
Katy Rowe-Schurwanz
Product Manager at FamilyTreeDNA
Katy Rowe-Schurwanz has always been interested in genealogy, inspired by her maternal grandparents, who told her stories about their family and family history when she was little. After studying anthropology and history in college, she joined FamilyTreeDNA in 2015 and became the Trainer for Customer Support. Katy created and improved training processes and was fundamental in the creation of the Big Y Specialist team. In September 2021, she became Product Manager and has focused closely on improving FamilyTreeDNA’s genetic genealogy products.