Makes it all much clearer, Cheri, thanks. Rosemarie [email protected] Researching Sao Jorge, Terceira, Graciosa, Faial and Pico, Azores, Isola delle Femmine, Sant' Elia, Sicily
On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 9:06 AM Cheri Mello <[email protected]> wrote: > (Cross posted to Azores, Madeira, and Island Routes lists) > > A project member had a question about mutations or differences and genetic > distance on Y and mtDNA. Basically the question had to do with how Y-DNA > mutates versus mtDNA. > > Here's my analogy (complete with a Sao Miguel slant): You have a green > banana and a green pineapple. In a couple of days, your banana is turning > yellow. Give it a couple of more days, and it will start to freckle. That > pineapple though? It's still green. It needs more like a couple of weeks > for it to start to ripen. > > Y-DNA is the banana ripening. It ripens relatively quickly compared to the > pineapple. Y-DNA has mutations that happen on a more frequent basis. Some > might happen only in a couple of hundred of years. > > MtDNA is the pineapple ripening. It takes a looong time for it to ripen. > The mtDNA mutations happen much, much less frequently. They mutate more on > a period of every couple of THOUSANDS of years. So to have a perfect match > on mtDNA and not find the common ancestor would not be unusual. It mutates > sooooo slowly. It makes it more difficult to find matches. People want > instant gratification so they don't test mtDNA. Therefore, the mtDNA > portion of most of the Azores and Madeira DNA Projects is more in a census > or survey mode. There's been a few mtDNA matches, but they have been on > smaller Azorean islands. We are still working on building this up. As more > and more people test, we will be able to figure out about half of our mtDNA > matches - due to their nature of mutating so slowly. The other half may be > so far back (thousands of years) that we may not be able to find it with > the paper trail. > > Hope this analogy helps! Cheri Mello, Family Tree DNA Admin (volunteer) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Azores Genealogy" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores.
