Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited by men and women, but only passed from mother to daughter.  This makes mtDNA a useful tool for maternal line research.  A man and a woman will both receive their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, but only the woman will pass it on to her children.  The man will not. This project is open to anyone (male and female) who can trace their maternal line to Missouri. 

The goal of this project is to identify the maternal lineages of the people of Missouri past and present.  Participants are encouraged to share names, information, and pictures (if possible) of their Missouri maternal ancestors to aid our collaboration.  Posts to the group, photos, and comments are only available to members of this project.

Maternal line ancestry can be so difficult to research, particularly because of changing family names every generation.  Pairing knowledge of our ancestors’ geographical locations along with genetic evidence gives us an edge in identifying families and clusters of related individuals.  With that in mind, I started this project to hopefully one day provide Missouri researchers a catalog of Missouri maternal lineages.