Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
How Does mtDNA Help With My Genealogical Research?
Using mtDNA to further your genealogical efforts is a three step process:
- Obtain your mtDNA profile
- Find an mtDNA match in our database
- Collaborate with the matching individual to make a genealogical connection
mtDNA testing an ideal way to find out more information about your direct maternal lineage. Once you have obtained your mtDNA profile, you can use that information to query our database. Any individual with a matching genetic profile can be considered your maternal relative, some distant, some recent. By contacting and connecting with these DNA matches, you can investigate, verify, or discover more information about your maternal line.
What is Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)?
The mitochondria is a structure inside the cell that is responsible for energy production. The mitochondria is passed with a strict maternal inheritance, meaning that mothers pass their mtDNA to all of their children, but only the daughters will pass it to the next generation.
How is mtDNA tested and reported?
Each mitochondria has its own small, circular DNA. Since 97% of the mtDNA is the same in every human, it is efficient to only test the regions with the most variance. These regions are called the hyper variable regions (HVR). There are three hyper variable regions, and mtDNA tests usually note the number of hyper variable regions that are tested.
Your mtDNA sequence is then compared to the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), which is the mtDNA reference standard. Your mtDNA results are not reported as your entire mtDNA sequence (16569 letters would be a lot to keep track of!), but instead only your differences from the CRS standard. Your results are displayed in a table that shows the location in the sequence, the CRS standard sequence letter (A, T, C, or G), and your personal sequence letter.
Most mtDNA tests cover a minimum of 400 locations, at GeneTree we only provide one mtDNA test which tests all three hyper variable regions covering over a thousand locations.
For questions on which test to use please speak with one of our DNA consultants.
