Mitochondrial DNA - Extreme Family History

My mother Anne has now had her mitochondrial DNA analyzed by Oxford Ancestors. Everyone inherits their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA for short) from their mother. Your mother inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from hers and so on back through time. We all inherit other genes from our many other ancestors but only mtDNA traces a direct maternal line back through time.

The farthest I have been able to trace my mother's direct maternal ancestry is to Ann Parry who was born about 1807 in Grosmont, Monmouthshire and who married Thomas Ellaway. All of the direct female descendants of Ann Parry will have the same mtDNA as my mother.

My mother's direct maternal ancestry is European. She is descended from one of the "Seven" major European clans. These are the "Seven Daughters of Eve" who represent the seven clan mothers from whom almost all native Europeans are descended. The "Seven Daughters of Eve" are Ursula, Xenia, Tara, Helena, Katrine, Velda and Jasmine.

My mother is descended from the clan of Helena (Greek for light) whose descendants make up over 45 percent of the European population. Helena's descendants can be found from the Alps in the south to the Scottish Highlands and the Norwegian fjords in the north and as far east as the Urals and the Russian Steppes.

According to Oxford Ancestors...

Helena was born about 20,000 years ago on the strip of land that joins France and Spain, near what is now Perpignan. She belonged to a family of hunters, who harvested the rich oyster beds in the lagoons of the Camargue to supplement their diet of meat. Helena's clan arrived in Europe from the Middle East, pushing their way along the Mediterranean, constrained to the narrow strip of land that was still habitable.

Not long after she was born, the glaciers that covered the Pyrenees, which Helena could see on a clear day only thirty miles from her camp, began to draw back as, little by little, the summers grew warmer. Some of her clan moved south of the mountains, up the valley of the Ebro to the West to reach the lands of the Basque, where they remain to this day. The most adventurous of her children took advantage of the climatic improvements and journeyed ever northwards to join the great movement of hunters across the plains of France. We know that they reached England around 12,000 years ago because DNA recovered from a young male skeleton found in Gough's Cave in Somerset shows that he too belonged to the clan of Helena.

You can find more information at the Oxford Ancestors website.

Please click here to go to Gerald's paternal DNA ancestry.

Copyright 2005 Gerald Majumdar