A Canadian Family

Mamma-mia, I’ve got an M-line!

The notion of the M-line is relatively new to genealogy so I thought I would give you a little introduction to this rapidly growing area of inquiry.

Human mtDNA migration Source: Wikimedia Commos

What is an M-line?

An M-line is your ancestry traced through your mother, but not in the traditional manner.

Traditionally, when people say they’re doing their maternal ancestry, they mean that they start from a certain woman and then follow that woman’s ancestry through her father. In other words, you would start with a Jane Doe, and then follow through her Doe parents, grandparents, great-grandparents etc.  Genealogists like me who are particularly interested in their female ancestors might also develop the wives’ families and enquire into their lives, but that enquiry is still usually organized around a surname line. I can think of three reasons why this is so:  1) We naturally identify with our own surname and those of our parents and in our society most of us carry our father or maternal grandfather’s surname.  2) Surnames tend to originate and then cluster in various regions so it’s relatively easy to build resources and become proficient in that one surname .  3) As a general rule, modern western society has focused more on the work and lives of men as opposed to women.

An M-line is different. With an M-line you begin with one of your maternal ancestors, and then follow her ancestors back through time exclusively through the female line. So, starting from a Jane Doe, you would go first to Jane Doe’s mother, and then to her mother’s mother, her mother’s mother’s mother and so on. Some people have called this the matrilineal, umbilical or uterine line but I have chosen to use Roderick’s suggested term M-lines For further discussion of this term see:

Genetics & Genealogy http://genealogy.about.com/library/authors/ucroderick1f.htm).

Why is there so much interest in M-lines?

Over the past five years many genealogists have been turning to genetic genealogy to learn more about their ancestry. Several companies now offer genetic testing that will allow you to determine information such as your ethnic group. These tests are particularly useful to determine deep ancestry. Your DNA markers will place you in what is called a haplogroup and you can then get an idea of your ancestors’ migratory routes as they left Africa. Read more »

January 2, 2009 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | Amerindian, Channel Islands, Genealogy, genetic genealogy, Luce, M-line, Native | 2 Comments