Native American mtdna lineages

[Schwarzburg-Sondershausen]

My brother-in-law recently had his mtdna tested and we await the results as his mtdna is the same as my wife's. Their earliest recorded ancestor that I've been able to document is a woman in Northern Mexico who was having her children in the 1790s. We think there is a good possibility that the mtdna may be Native American. I know that the American mtdna lineages are A,B,C,D,X with a bunch of numbers and letters after them that make them unique to the Americas.

My question...are there lineages that would indicate membership in a certain group more than others? For example, what are the haplogroups that would indicate Athabaskan (i.e. Apache or Navajo) ancestry over much more ancient Native American ancestry in Northern Mexico? Is there somewhere on the internet that spells out these haplogroups in detail?

[palamede]

My brother-in-law recently had his mtdna tested and we await the results as his mtdna is the same as my wife's. Their earliest recorded ancestor that I've been able to document is a woman in Northern Mexico who was having her children in the 1790s. We think there is a good possibility that the mtdna may be Native American. I know that the American mtdna lineages are A,B,C,D,X with a bunch of numbers and letters after them that make them unique to the Americas.

My question...are there lineages that would indicate membership in a certain group more than others? For example, what are the haplogroups that would indicate Athabaskan (i.e. Apache or Navajo) ancestry over much more ancient Native American ancestry in Northern Mexico? Is there somewhere on the internet that spells out these haplogroups in detail?

Generally, mitochondrial haplogroups are more dispersed than Y haplogroups and Amerind people are not an exception.
By peoples and tribes, differents frequencies of serveral haplogroups (A, B, C, D and X) were found, but excepr small trives with the recent doundation time, there is no special haplogroup for one tribe, and less for a people yet.  

In more, now, there are rare studies about North Amerind DNAs due to political difficulties, specially in Canada and US.

I found an old paper of 1996 (X was not known at this time, X more numerous in Algonquin peoples, then Sioux, Na-Dene and some North-West tribes, rare in other populations.
Lack of Founding Amerindian Mitochondrial DNA Lineages in Extinct Aborigines from Tierra del Fuego-Patagonia
Carles Lalueza+, Alejandro Pérez-Pérez+, Eva Prats1,+, Lluís Cornudella1,* and Daniel Turbón

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/1/41.full

Na-Dene North (Dogrib and Haida) n=209 A 92.8% B 0% C 1.4% D 0.5% N (X?) 5.3%
Na-Dene South (Apache & Navajo) n=73 A=60.3% B 30.1% C 4.1% D 2.7% N(X?) 2,7%
Northern Amerinds n=224 A 46.4% B 14.3% C 23.2% D 8.0% N(X?) 8.0%
Central Amerinds__n=261 A 46.4% B 34.5% C 18.4% D 0.4% N 0.4%
Southern Amerinds n=676 A 8.3% B 37.9% C 20.8% D 31.8% N 1.2%
Fuego-Patagonians n=60 A 0% B 0% C 38,3% D 60,0% N=1,7%

X is North-Eastern
A decreases from North to South
Haplogroup A is the most common haplogroup among the Chukchis, Eskimos, Na-Denes, and many Amerind ethnic groups of North and Central America.
B doesn't exist in North Na-Dene and Fuego-Patagonians. B rare above 55°North in Asia and America. B  were more maritime like in Asia/Oceania and followed the west coast of North, Central and South . Its subgroup B2 is one of five haplogroups found in the indigenous peoples of the Americas,
C and D  increase southwards more and more
The subclades C1b, C1c, C1d, and C4c are found in the first people of the Americas. C1a is found only in Asia.
 Its subclade D1 (along with D2 and D4) is one of five haplogroups found in the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

C and D are daughters of the macro-haplogroup M.
A and X are daughters of the macro-haplogroup N.
B daughter of the macro-haplogroup R.

Added: See interesting for the South-West US
http://dienekes.blogspot.fr/2010/03/ancient-mtdna-from-us-southwest.html





  

[Schwarzburg-Sondershausen]

Thanks, Palamede. Fascinating stuff!

[Schwarzburg-Sondershausen]

OK...we just got the results back from FTDNA on my wife's mtdna. My wife's earliest female ancestor was a woman who was having her kids in the 1790s in a place in Tamaulipas called Cruillas in Northern Mexico. Even though her race is listed as "mulata" I suspected her mtdna might turn out to be Native American. My hunch was correct. Their haplogroup is "A" and there were 25 exact matches!

Well, now...this opens a whole new can of worms! We did the mid-level test. The folks at FTDNA have led me to believe that if we upgrade to a full mtdna test it will differentiate between a Central American "A" versus a Athabaskan "A" which will indicate whether or not my wife's ancestors moved up into Tamaulipas from the South or if they were Lipan Apaches from up north in Texas.

My Newby question is this: Some of the exact matches are pretty widely distributed. There are some in Puerto Rico and down the Central American coast into South America. Would this be pretty solid evidence that we have a Central American A on our hands or could it be possible the Athabaskan A lineages have diffused that far south in the last 1000 years? Is is true that mtdna does not mutate as rapidly as Y-DNA? Is the slower rate measurable? Or am I just misunderstanding the whole picture and REALLY need some straightening out?