Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup U5- Background

Background

mt haplogroup U5 has been estimated to be around 36,000 years old (within an uncertainty range of 25,000 to 47,000 years old) and was among the first modern humans to populate Europe. Ancient DNA tests have shown that U5 was frequently found in hunter gatherers in Europe before the development of agriculture. Branches of the U5 tree and the mutations that identify each branch can be seen at Phylotree.org.

The U5 Projects
For all people with mtDNA haplogroup U5, please join our U5 project!  If you have completed the Full Sequence (FGS) test, please also join the respective U5a FGS or U5b FGS projects. Members of the FGS should also remain members of this U5 General Project as well.

Important:  If you have completed the FGS test Please consider sharing your FGS coding region results with the project administrators.  The coding region results are not shown on the project page and will not be made public, and by default they are also hidden from the project administrators. The coding region results are essential for identifying your lowest level daughter group, for estimating the age of each daughter group, for identifying new daughter groups and for filling in the fine details on the U5 tree.  To share your coding region results with the project administrators, please log into your FTDNA account, and on the left side bar click on "User Preferences", then check the box next to "CR Results" for the U5 projects, and then click on update at the bottom of the page.

Our aims
To provide the best help for all U5-members to learn and understand as much as possible about their subclade.
* for the U5 general project: to add HVR1/HVR2-testers to their tentative groups, and thus give advice about further testing for those who are interested
* encourage more research for U5 FGS-results, so we all can learn more.
* encourage and help those interested in donating their FGS-sequences to GenBank, to be accessible to researchers all over the world
* maintain the best level of privacy for our members, at the same time as we try to learn from each other's results

Because of the large size of the U5 project (over 1,000 members and growing) we have two administrators to organize the results:

• Gail is working on U5a
• Anne is working on U5b

If you have questions about your haplogroup please email one of the administrators at the addresses above or email Gail for general questions about the project.

Ancestral info
mtDNA is inherited strictly through the direct maternal line. To learn more about the origins of the various subclades of U5, it is important that all U5-members fill in their ancestral information under Plot Ancestral Location. Enter full name, appr years of birth/death, place, county and country. If unknown because of adoptions or other, please explain under "maternal ancestor" in "User Preferences". Also note that your direct maternal ancestor is the name of your mother's mother's mother etc - it is always a woman. Please also plot the location of this direct maternal ancestor on the map.

If you have genealogy software on your computer, it is easy to generate a GEDCOM-file with your direct ancestors. This can be uploaded to your account, and will be visible to your matches.

An informative animation video made by the Sorenson Foundation explains how mtDNA is inherited from your mother only, and follows the direct maternal line.

Beginner? A lot of questions?
You can start by reading through the information pages here at Family Tree DNA about mtDNA-tests. You will probably find the answer to a lot of your basic questions.

Connecting to other U5-members
There is a mtDNA U Discussion board at DNA Forums, where anyone can register with a nick to post and read. For information about U5 and for posting questions, we recommend this forum. The project administrators are members and follow the U discussions.

For Facebook members there is also an informal mtDNA U5 group to connect with other U5-people.