Mitochondria from our mothers
Most of the cells in your body contain tiny particles called mitochondria which have their own DNA. You inherited your mitochondrial DNA directly from your mother. Analysing this DNA tells geneticists about our maternal ancestors.
'If you look at the mitochondrial DNA markers or 'signatures' of three people and two of them are more similar, it means that those two must have shared a common maternal ancestor much more recently than they did with the third person.'
Peter Forster, geneticist, University of Cambridge
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