L2a1 MtDNA--Africa and Beyond- Background

Background

This group has been organized to answer the question:
 
"When, where, why and how does our diverse community of people---whose maternal line heritage ranges from Jewish, Afro-American, African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Gypsy and beyond---all connect?" 

It has became clear our common ancestral migration story is going to be vast, complex and utterly fascinating.  We are on the job of uncovering that story, by analyzing a combination of our various genetic results and family histories.  We have instigated varous research projects to take advantage of the constantly emerging insights from various genetic studies.  The art of determining the time to common ancestors using mtdna is constantly being refined and we are on our way to creating a robust phlylogeny for the group.  (Phylogeny is just fancy genetics-speak for a real cool tree!)

Along the way, if we can find nearer-term relationships and connections between individual group members, so much the better!  

If you have tested your mtdna at the HVR2 level or higher and been identified with the L2a1 haplogroup, please join us! 

(We do not reject HVR1-level testers, but we have found that the genetic information at that level isn't sufficient to be very useful in group studies.) Many of the members of this group have tested their full genome sequence, as it is at that level that we truly can tell who is closest to whom and when/where/why that connection is likely to have happened.

This group has existed for years privately but has just started out as an ftdna project, so please be patient as it will take time for the website to be updated with members and fully fleshed out.

Questions? Feel free to email me anytime at: dnadeb@gmail.com  

Debra Katz
Administrator