After we receive your mtDNA sequence we will match your mtDNA with our database.
You will receive a list of those individuals who match you, taken partly from published scientific papers.
We will instruct you how to access these scientific publications (many of them are available free on the internet), where you can read about details on your distant cousins.
Additionally you will receive your personal results in the form of a worldmap showing the geographic locations of your matches.
We will identify your matriline (“haplogroup” or “Daughter of Eve”), which will show to which evolutionary branch your mtDNA belongs.
The worldmap additionally shows how common locally your distant mtDNA cousins are in different parts of the world. In the example on the right, the circle symbols are shaded darker or lighter according to the local percentages of your mtDNA type.
In over 95% of cases we will find an exact or very close match to your mtDNA.
The older your mtDNA type is, the more time it will have had to spread. In our experience around 10% of customers will have young mtDNA types (a few thousand years old) showing a limited spread within a specific geographic region.
For other customers who have ancient mtDNA types (e.g. 20,000 years old, when the glaciers of the last Ice Age reached their maximum, or 30,000 years old, when the Neanderthals were being pushed to extinction by our ancestors) their matches could be spread widely across an entire continent.
- Step 1a
(if you already know your mtDNA sequence, go to Step 1b):
We will send you a clinically sterile home saliva test, similar to a cotton bud, with which you will gently brush the inside of your cheek.
This will give us enough mtDNA to analyse. After you send the sample back to us, we will analyse it in our laboratories.
There, scientists will carefully filter other particles from the brush (ions, bacteria etc) in order to obtain a few molecules of your mtDNA.
These molecules are then 'amplified', or multiplied prior to analysis.
The DNA analysis itself is performed by machine, and provides your mtDNA sequence.
- Step 2:
We will compare your mtDNA sequence with our database using our program mtAncestor to find matches – that is, other people in the world with whom you share the same mtDNA sequence.
We plot these matches on our world map for you to estimate where you should find your maternal ancestry.
We will furthermore generate a list of individuals who match you – they are generally anonymous donors described in scientific publications.
- Step 3:
You will receive an email from us with your results.
