23 and Me provides its DNA customers with their perspective Haplogroups. What does this mean? Well, as I am still new to deciphering the DNA jargon, as far as I have researched so far, each person is assigned a Haplogroup as determined by their maternal line or paternal line. Women only possess the H group for their maternal line, as they do not carry the paternal chromosome. Men, however possess both a maternal and paternal H group as they inherent a paternal line from their fathers.
What does this mean. It means that humans are able to trace their ancestry back through these lines, as the H group does not change. Women receive their mother’s H group who received their H group from their mother and so on, all the way back to the beginning of time. Men receive an H group from both their mother and father and can trace those back through history. Women who are interested in their paternal Haplogroup can receive their results from either their father or brother.
My maternal Haplogroup is H3. This is a common Haplogroup found within Europe and because of the abundance of the H group, it also common in the royal houses across Europe. The H is the originating group of the H Haplogroup and is followed by several variations of the H Haplogroup (H1, H2, H3….). Nicolas Copernicus was an H MTDNA Haplogroup member, as was Marie Antoinette. What does this mean? Well, so far in my DNA research, this means that at some point within history, I am related to both Nicolas and Marie as our Haplogroups match. It is unclear of when our shared ancestor may have lived, but it is exciting to know that is entirely possible to trace this history. Don’t call me royalty…just yet.
Cited works: Bogdanowicz, Wiesław, Marie Allen, Wojciech Branicki, Maria Lembring, Marta Gajewska, Tomasz Kupiec, and Alan Walker. “Genetic Identification of Putative Remains of the Famous Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 30 (2009): 12279-2282. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uta.edu/stable/40484127.