In some ways, mtDNA is easier for genealogy. Because you are not necessarily looking to match a surname, you look at everyone who has the same mutations from the CRS. Then you look at the time period, place and perhaps maiden surname where both parties forbearers lived to see if you have a match in time, place, DNA and maiden surname. It leads to interesting discussions and sometimes a match, or at least a suspected one. As with Y DNA, the best use of these results is to compare with someone you suspect you share an ancestor with and see if the DNA supports the theory or paper trail. Incidental matches are like winning the lotto, it happens, but it will be a while before and require vastly more people to do DNA testing before it happens to most of us. Best of luck, enjoy the adventure, John Carr On Jun 11, 2006, at 8:12 PM, Nelda Percival wrote: > Hi, > There have been quite a genealogy few break throughs using mtDNA(not > nearly as many as yDNA). William Hurst admin of the Hurst DNA program > at FTDNA and a member of genealogy-dna a mailing list at rootsweb can > direct you to quite a few references. But, it is not easy as like you > point out the female's surname changes. > Personally I'm not quite sure how it is done and when I get my mtdna > results I'm going to ask William for advice on how to proceed, but it > has been done. > On Jun 11, 2006, at 8:12 PM, Jim Gordon wrote: The mt-DNA tracks the female side of your ancestry and is not very helpful because it is passed from the female side.

I do not know of any case where people have ever found a genealogical connection using mtDNA. Part of the problem is that a perfect match is reasonably likely given that mtDNA is so "slow changing". Does anyone know of any genealogical results from mt DNA? (mtDNA is interesting in other ways.) Regards Andrew -----Original Message----- From: John Carr [mailto:jcarrgensearch@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, 13 June 2006 3:01 AM To: SCOT-DNA-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SCOT-DNA] MtDNA testing In some ways, mtDNA is easier for genealogy. Because you are not necessarily looking to match a surname, you look at everyone who has the same mutations from the CRS. Then you look at the time period, place and perhaps maiden surname where both parties forbearers lived to see if you have a match in time, place, DNA and maiden surname. It leads to interesting discussions and sometimes a match, or at least a suspected one. As with Y DNA, the best use of these results is to compare with someone you suspect you share an ancestor with and see if the DNA supports the theory or paper trail. Incidental matches are like winning the lotto, it happens, but it will be a while before and require vastly more people to do DNA testing before it happens to most of us. Best of luck, enjoy the adventure, John Carr