I am looking at my mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Ancestral Origins page. Why are so many different countries listed?
If you show many different locations for your HVR1 and/or HVR1&2 results on the mtDNA Ancestral Origins page of your myFTDNA account then you likely have one of the more common result haplotypes for your haplogroup. The same hypervariable region (HVR) haplotypes within a haplogroup tend to be found in a range of countries in an area. This is influenced by political boundary changes and local marriage patterns. In cultures where women often leave their family and move to another village or tribal group, a wide geographic dispersal is expected. Some results are found often enough that they have spread out throughout a very large region or a continent. If, for example, you match people from countries located throughout Europe, then you happen to have a DNA result which is found in all of these places. Moving to a higher resolution test, the Mitochondrial DNA Full Genomic Sequence (FGS) test, will reduce the time to a common ancestor with your matches and reduce the number of potential pla
If you show many different locations for your HVR1 and/or HVR1&2 results on the mtDNA Ancestral Origins page of your myFTDNA account then you likely have one of the more common result haplotypes for your haplogroup. The same hypervariable region (HVR) haplotypes within a haplogroup tend to be found in a range of countries in an area. This is influenced by political boundary changes and local marriage patterns. In cultures where women often leave their family and move to another village or tribal group, a wide geographic dispersal is expected. Some results are found often enough that they have spread out throughout a large region or a continent. If, for example, you match people from countries located throughout Europe, then you happen to have a DNA result which is found in all of these places. Moving to a higher resolution test, the Mitochondrial DNA Full Genomic Sequence (FGS) test, will reduce the time to a common ancestor with your matches and reduce the number of potential places o
