Newfoundland and Labrador mtDNA Project- Background

Background

The focus of this project is on maternal ancestral lines in Newfoundland and Labrador. Anybody with a direct maternal ancestor who lived in Newfoundland and/or Labrador is encouraged to join the project.

What is mtDNA?
Mitochondrial DNA (or "mtDNA" for short) is a small portion of our DNA, but it has the property of being inherited only from one's mother, who inherited it from her mother, who got it from her mother, and so on. Everybody has mtDNA, but men cannot pass their mtDNA on to their children. The result is that genetic analysis of mtDNA will reveal a genetic signature that corresponds only to one's direct maternal line of ancestry.

If you have ancestry from Newfoundland and Labrador:
Note that the Newfoundland and Labrador mtDNA Project is intended only for people whose direct maternal ancestral line involves Newfoundland and Labrador. However, there is a separate Family Finder Project for Newfoundland and Labrador, designed for people with ancestry (anywhere in their pedigree) from Newfoundland and Labrador. Click on the link here to go to the Newfoundland and Labrador Family Finder Project.

mtDNA Project Goals:
• using mtDNA as a tool to assist with traditional genealogy in Newfoundland and Labrador
• gaining a better understanding about the early women of Newfoundland and Labrador, and of the family relationships between these early women
• identifying mtDNA from native peoples of Newfoundland and Labrador (including, if possible, identifying surviving Beothuk mtDNA lineages)

How to Join the Newfoundland and Labrador mtDNA Project:
If you have not yet had your mtDNA tested, then you can either join and order a DNA collection kit from FamilyTreeDNA through this webpage (and ultimately select either the mtDNA test, the mtDNAPlus test or the mtFullSequence test), or you can join the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project and transfer your results over to FamilyTreeDNA once the results have been reported. [Note however, that the Genographic Project will automatically test mtDNA for women, but for men they will automatically test Y-DNA... if you are male, you can join the Genographic Project and have your Y-DNA tested, then transfer your test results over to FamilyTreeDNA, and then order additional tests (such as the mtDNA test that is needed for this project)]

If you are already a customer of FamilyTreeDNA, then to join this project you can go to this webpage and enter your FamilyTreeDNA kit number and password. Alternatively, you can login to your personal webpage at www.familytreedna.com , click on the "Join Projects" link in the left-side menu, scroll down to "MT Geographical Projects" and click on "N", click on the link for our project and then follow the instructions that are presented on screen, ultimately leading to a "Join" button. Once you have successfully joined, your mtDNA results will automatically be included in the list of results shown below.

If you have already had your mtDNA tested by the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project, then go to your personal webpage with the Genographic Project, click on the "Learn More" link near the bottom of your personal page so that you can transfer your mtDNA results into the FamilyTreeDNA database, and then login to your personal webpage with FamilyTreeDNA and follow the instructions above.

Once you have joined our project, please login to your personal webpage with FamilyTreeDNA, go to your "User Preferences" and enter the name and details of your most distant maternal ancestor, including the latitude and longitude of where she lived [this way a pin will show up for her on the map that appears below]. To find the decimal formats for a location's latitude and longitude, you can use this online utility. As an example, coordinates for the town of Gander are Latitude 48.95 and Longitude -54.6 [note the minus sign].

Project News:
01 January 2012 - the number of project results is 96 (from haplogroups A, C, H, I, J, K, T, U, W, X)
01 January 2011 - the number of project results is 75 (from haplogroups A, C, H, I, J, K, T, U, W, X)
01 January 2010 - the number of project results is 59 (from haplogroups C, H, I, J, K, T, U, W, X)
01 January 2009 - the number of project results is 45 (from haplogroups C, H, I, J, K, T, U, W, X)
01 January 2008 - the number of project results is 27 (from haplogroups H, I, J, K, T, U, W, X)
02 April 2007 - the number of project results is 13 (from haplogroups H, K, T, W, and X)
24 March 2007 - the NFLD-LAB-DNA mailing list was established
27 October 2006 - the project was created

Discussion Group:
The NFLD-LAB-DNA email mailing list serves as our project's mailing list, as well as a forum for discussion of genetic genealogy in Newfoundland and Labrador. To subscribe to the list, click here. All messages posted to the list can be found in the NFLD-LAB-DNA archives.

Links:
• Newfoundland and Labrador "Family Finder" DNA Project
• International Society of Genetic Genealogy
• Family History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador
• Newfoundland and Labrador GenWeb
• Newfoundland's Grand Banks Genealogy Site
• NFLD-ROOTS mailing list
• Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador

Beothuk mtDNA:
In a paper published in 2007 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the HVR1 mutations for two members of the Beothuk people were determined as follows:

Demasduit has genetic matches with present-day Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq as well as Cherokee in Oklahoma. Nonosabasut's matches include some Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq as well as Chippawa from North Dakota/Alberta, Wisconsin Chippawa, and the Kiowa of Oklahoma.

Non-FTDNA Results:
The results in the table below are for people who were not tested by FamilyTreeDNA or the Genographic Project. This table can only be updated manually by one of the project's co-admins, whereas our project's main table is automatically generated from results within the FTDNA system.

Name	Haplogroup	HVR1
Demasduit	C	16223T,16298C,16325C,16327T
Nonosabasut	X2a	16093C,16189C,16213A,16223T,16278T

MitoSearch ID	Ancestor	Haplogroup	HVR1	HVR2
DSKPE	Susanna Anderson [1814-1915, Burgeo]	H5	16304C	93G,263G,315.1C,456T,523-,524-
4FK85	Margaret Barron [born circa 1815]	K	16048A,16093C,16224C,16291T,16311C,16519C	073G,195C,263G,315.1C,497T,523.1C,523.2A,523.3C,523.4A
9633T	Jane Thistle [1780-1841, Hr Grace]	T3	16126C,16292T,16294T,16497G,16519C	Not Tested
7NABJ	Mary G Kennedy [1846-1935, Conception Bay]	U	16192T,16256T,16270T,16362C,16399G	73G,263G,315.1C

Haplogroups:
Each person's test results include a mtDNA haplogroup designation. Haplogroups are anthropological in nature, and reflect the ancient origins of one's direct maternal line. Origins for a number of haplogroups are listed below:
• European haplogroups: H, I, J, K, T, U, V, W, plus some X's
• Native American haplogroups: A, B, C, D, and some X's (especially X2a, which includes the HVR1 mutation 16213A and the HVR2 mutation 200G)
• African haplogroups: L, M
• Asian haplogroups: A, B, C, D
Haplogroups listed with numbers (like T2b) are actually subgroups (for example, T2b is a subgroup of T, H5a is a subgroup of H, etc).

What Constitutes a mtDNA Match?
A mtDNA genetic match consists of an exact match on the HVR1 test results (and also on the HVR2 and FGS results when they are available).