Testing Your mtDNA

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Permalink Reply by Ruth on July 19, 2009 at 9:56am

Hello everyone,
I have gone as far back as about 1825 with my third great grandmother. She was adopted. She had three daughters, I think she pass away soon after giving birth to my 2nd great grandmother, I found my 2nd great grandmother living with her widow father at the age of five in the census. I am hoping that her adopted parents were her maternal grandparents or aunt. I have not been able to find that info yet.
So far all of my ancestors were born in Puerto Rico.
I have about 11 matches with HVR1 & HVR2, all descendants from parents or grandparents born in Puerto Rico.
I have no match with my full sequence within FTDNA. But I did find out about a woman who was tested from Senegal Africa of the Fulbe tribe who matches my exact full sequence. I had gotten in contact with the researcher but was told that they cannot give me the information as to who she was. The paper was: Saami and Berbers—An Unexpected Mitochondrial DNA Link.
My other matches from the Genographic Project for the low resolution (HVR1) results are from Africa. 16 of them, five from Cameroon, nine from Guinea-Bissau and two from Mauritania.
So far those who are my matches and tested with FTDNA are from Puerto Rico and those who were tested with Genographic Project are from Africa.

I have tested with FTDNA as well as 23andme.
If you sign the release form from FTDNA you are immediately informed if you have any matches and you are able to email the person. I have stayed in contact with four of my matches from FTDNA. I have made an ancestor's connection with one of my matches who was born in my mother's hometown. I am still trying to find a connection with the other three I keep in contact with.
FTDNA makes it very simple by posting your results on your personal page as well as the areas where your ancestral matches are located.

With 23andme you get your raw data. You would have to search for your markers on your own, which it is not easy to do so if you are not familiar with that information. Once assigned to a haplogroup you would post on the community board which haplogroup your belong to and that you would like to share with others of that group. Hopefully you will find those that are willing to share with you. Depending on the level from which you are willing to share "basic or extended", the others and you are able to see the information posted on their page, except for the raw data, no one can see that or if you are sharing on the basic level they are not able to see your health and traits data section.
I have not found anyone at 23andme with an exact match with my mtdna, but I did find a match who shares some of my autosomal dna, which I found quite interesting. We are both trying to find the common ancestor that connects us.