23 and Me DNA results
I just got my DNA results from 23 and Me. I already took the Ancestry.com test, which is usually what I use to connect to cousins since that’s where my tree is. But the 23 and Me test looks at the MtDNA which is the direct Maternal line. The Ancestry.com test just shows cousins, whereas the MtDNA (or Y-DNA if you’re male) is much more accurate since the Y or Mtdna gets passed to son/daughter almost intact and allows direct lineages to be verified.
Women inherit a copy of their mother’s mtDNA, who inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from hers, and so on through the generations along an unbroken line of women. The copies passed down are not always perfectly identical, however. Small typos in the mtDNA sequence occasionally occur, creating new genetic variants. Over many generations, these variants stack up in unique patterns that are carried by different maternal lines around the world.
My maternal line: Weiler, Hanning, Freyhofer, Aegeter. I can only trace my maternal grandmother line back to my 3rd great grandmother (Susan Aegeter, born in Switzerland in 1805. She married John Jacob Freyhofer), so maybe this test will help me fill out that lineage. All women descended from Susan should have the same haplogroup.
According to my mtDNA results from 23 and Me:
Your maternal haplogroup is T2g.
You descend from a long line of women that can be traced back to eastern Africa over 150,000 years ago. These are the women of your maternal line, and your maternal haplogroup sheds light on their story.
As our ancestors ventured out of eastern Africa, they branched off in diverse groups that crossed and recrossed the globe over tens of thousands of years. Some of their migrations can be traced through haplogroups, families of lineages that descend from a common ancestor.
Jesse James also belonged to haplogroup T2 via a common ancestor 19,500 years ago [so there’s no point in trying to figure out who that is].
Jesse Woodson James (1847-1882) may be one of the most infamous names in the American Old West. Originally from Missouri, James fought for the Confederates, using guerrilla tactics against the Union forces and sympathizers. At the end of the war, James became a full-fledged outlaw, gang leader, robber, and murderer whose reputation is known far and wide in America today.
Scientists determined that James’ maternal haplogroup was likely T2 through a combination of genealogical and genetic research. James’ body was believed to lie in a cemetery in Kearney, Missouri, but modern sleuths lacked proof that the body was indeed the outlaw. So, researchers compared the mtDNA extracted from the body’s teeth to the mtDNA of maternal-line descendants of James’ younger sister Susan Lavenia James. They were a match, supporting the claim that it was in fact James’ body, and providing his maternal haplogroup at the same time.
They also include a Neanderthal report:
You have 308 Neanderthal variants. You have more Neanderthal variants than 92% of 23andMe customers.
However, your Neanderthal ancestry accounts for less than 4% of your overall DNA.23andMe tests for Neanderthal ancestry at 1,436 markers scattered across the genome. At each of these markers you can have a genetic variant that evolved in Neanderthals and came back into the human lineage when the two groups interbred. Because you inherit variants from both of your parents, you can have 0, 1, or 2 copies of the Neanderthal variant at each marker. We report your total number of Neanderthal variant copies, which is therefore a number between 0 and 2,872. However, nobody has all 2,872 — the most we’ve ever seen in a 23andMe customer is less than 400.
You have 1 Neanderthal variant associated with a reduced tendency to sneeze after eating dark chocolate.
You have 1 Neanderthal variant associated with having less back hair.
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