Seven Generations of L3e2a1b1 – My Grandmother Pearl’s MtDNA

Information chart from 23andMe MtDNA page.
Information chart from 23andMe MtDNA page.

Although I inherited DNA from my paternal Grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage, I did not inherit her MtDNA, which goes through the maternal line, from mother to daughter to granddaughter etc. I had to convince one of my father’s sisters to be tested. My Aunt Gladys agreed. Oral history told us that my Grandmother’s mother’s mother was a Cherokee Indian, however, her MtDNA L3e21b1, originates in Sub-Saharan Africa.  No Native American DNA showed up at all, in either my MtDNA or my autosomal (total) DNA.

Names and photos of some of those who share Clara's mtdna.
Names and photos of some of those who share Clara’s mtdna.

 

Clara Hoskins is the first woman in this ancestral line that I can name.  She was born about 1829 in Kentucky. Her daughter, Annie Allen,  and her 5 granddaughters were also born in Kentucky. From there, the family moved to Indianapolis, IN and on to Benton Harbor and Detroit Michigan and spread out from there to California, Illinois, Windsor and Toronto.

Annie passed her mtDNA to all of her 8 children but because it passes from mother to daughter, only the five daughters passed it on to their daughters. The son’s children received their mother’s MtDNA.  Those 5 daughters birthed 15 granddaughters, who birthed 12 known great granddaughters. Josephine’s daughter Bessie, disappeared so I don’t know if she had children.  From those 12 great granddaughters I have 11 known 2x great granddaughters.

 There are several lines that I lost about here. I can only vouch for 1 3x great granddaughter but there are possibly others from those 5 unknown to me lines.  Hopefully, someone will let me know. This makes a total of 42 known descendents with Clara’s MtDNA.

Anna’s oldest daughter, Josephine, had one daughter, Bessie, who ran away from home in her youth and was never heard from again. Unfortunately, I don’t know Josephine’s married name so I can’t try and find Bessie.  She last makes an appearance in the 1900 census living with her grandmother in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Lillian Louise Reed Shoemaker had a son and a daughter, Mildred, who had 1 son only.

Sarah Reed Busby had 5 daughters.  Elleretta had 2 sons only.   Margaret had 2 daughters,  Sarah and Arlene. Sarah had a daughter. Queen had 1 daughter, Elaine, who had 2 daughters, Marina and Lori.  Lori had 1 son and 1 daughter, Alexis. Marina had  2 daughters, Sinclaire and Sidne. These daughters are all still in school.  Sophia had 1 daughter, Bernadine, who had 1 son only. I have no children for Marie.

Minnie Reed Mullins had 5 daughters.  Helen had 2 sons and 2 daughters, Patricia and Joyce. Patricia has 1 daughter, Anastasia. Joyce has 2 daughters, Elizabeth and Kristinia.  I don’t know if either of them had children.  Georgie Anna had 1 daughter, Barbara Anne. I don’t know if this daughter had any children.  Hughie Marie had 1 daughter, Patrice, who has 1 daughter, Katherine, who has no children. Minnie had 1 daughter, Deborah Anne.  who has no children. Barbara Louise had 4 sons only.

My grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage had 3 daughters, Barbara, Gladys and Anna. Barbara has 1 son only. Gladys has 3 sons and 1 daughter, Jan. Jan has 1 son and 3 daughters, Shashu, Jann and Sadya. Shashu has 1 son and 1 daughter, Lyric. Lyric is too young to have children.  Anna has 2 daughters, Anna and Maria. Anna has 2 sons and 2 daughters, Liliana and Sophia. Liliana has 1 toddler daughter. Maria has 2 children by adoption who will not share her mtdna.

31 thoughts on “Seven Generations of L3e2a1b1 – My Grandmother Pearl’s MtDNA

  1. So, no cherokee, HUH? 🙂 i kind of wondered about some of the stories, but i wonder why and how the Cherokee stuff started?

    1. What stories did you hear? I just remember vague references. Nothing specific and nothing in our lives that could be traced back to that group.

  2. Hey Kristin! My maternal haplogroup is L3D1 (also a subgroup of L3). My haplo-group profile box looks just like yours. 🙂

    Renate

  3. Well, on second glance, it doesn’t look just like yours, because your H-group is 45,000 years old, and mine is only 30,000. 🙂

    Renate

    1. I just noticed the differences in age last night when I was doing the MtDNA post for my great grandmother Celia Rice Cleage. Her L3b haplogroup (also a subgroup of L3) is only 22,000 years old. It’s all pretty amazing.

  4. You could still have NA ancestry a haplogroup is just one direct line. There’s many other female lines in your Tree! My female lines are L3e2a1b1 and B2b which is Native American.

    1. Elias, I didn’t just do the haplo groups, I did the autosomal dna test which is how I know that there is no Native American DNA appearing in any line, not just in Grandmother Pearl’s mtDNA. It could be far back and not showing up in my line, but if my grandmother’s grandmother was actually NA, it would show up somewhere, I think. Didn’t appear in my paternal aunts autosomal test either. I posted on several other mtdna lines right before this post, all of which go back to West Africa. I don’t have any males in my lines to test the Ydna. I did one talking about the test in general here http://findingeliza.com/archives/11437

  5. “Sarah Reed Busby had 5 daughters. Elleretta had 2 sons only. Margaret had 2 daughters, Sarah and Irene. …”
    1959 H-P Newspaper BH MI parents 45th anniversary article
    Sarah’s married name was Martin, she had a daughter and was living in Gary, IN
    and Arlene (not Irene) is the second daughter.

  6. You may be Cherokee…I recently read anto article that said Cherokees have dna similar to Hebrews, sub-Saharans, and more.

  7. Hi Kristin —

    I remember chatting with you a month or two back and sharing that you were showing up as a match to my mother. Interesting to now hear that your Dad’s mother’s family shares the same L3e2a1b1 haplogroup as my mother and me too! I keep seeing “Reeds” in my surname matches at Ancestry.com. I can identify “Reed” as a surname on my Dad’s side, but it’s a big mystery why this surname keeps popping up on my mother’ side too. Best wishes!

    Charles Holman

  8. Salutations,

    It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Lorenzo. I recently joined 23andme and I have the preliminary results back from my dna and it appears that we are related. 🙂 My maternal line has been identified as: L3e2a1b1. My great-grandmother’s name was Ruth, my grandmother was born Lucine, but changed her name to Lucille the other children included Waymon, Joseph, QP, Christine, Addie Ruth and Betty Ruth. My grandmother had one child, Tommie Mae who bore myself and my sister Tonya. I do know that Ruth had siblings: Judge, Phoebe and Emma. I am going to try to find out who their mother was. I am sure that their mother was likely Clara Hoskins’ granddaughter or great-grandaughter.

    1. Hi Lorenzo,
      Are we DNA relatives on 23&me? Mtdna goes back so far that sharing it doesn’t mean we’re actually related. Unless that shared dna is there. I am Kristin Williams on 23 and me.

  9. I’m a black male and I just received my DNA results and my mother whom has Native American ancestry (which didn’t show up at all on my results) is rumored to have Cherokee and she belongs to this haplogroup “L3e2a1b1”. We are from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Virginia. So if she belongs to this haplogroup with you, does that technically mean that she/we are related somehow ?

    1. Hi Jory,
      No, it doesn’t mean we are related. MTdna is handed down from the mother to the daughter, all the way back, in the case of L3e2a1b, it goes back 45,000 years. We could be related 45,000 years ago, but not close enough to tell.

      Did I come up as one of your matches on 23and Me? I am Kristin Williams there.

      This isn’t my haplogroup. My grandmother Pearl is my father’s mother. I get mine from my mother, so even though I am related to all the people on the page, we don’t share the same haplogroup, we share autosomal dna – the whole of the dna we have from bits and pieces of our Ancestor, passed down from our parents.

    1. Jory,
      It really is interesting, isn’t it. You might want to consider doing a test of your autosomal DNA down the line. You get much more information.

  10. So what would be the benifit of doing another test? If I did 23andme, would I get more or different information vs the national geographic DNA test? If so I’m definitely interested and the 23andme is half the price. 😉

    1. You have only had your mtdna tested so far. It is only that one strand from mother to mother to mother and on back, although a son will have his mother’s mtdna, he won’t pass it on. If you have an autosomal test done, it will test the dna that was contributed by all lines, both paternal and maternal, all grandmothers and grandfathers, whatever dna came down from all of them to you. You will see your ydna, which is sort of like the mtdna but comes through the paternal line from father to son to his son etc. And all the other dna besides. I like 23&me because you get to compare which chromosomes and where you compare to others who match you. I had an mtdna only test done years ago. It wasn’t half as interesting as getting the whole thing done. They tell you how much is from different continents, with finer breakdowns for European. And you can upload to GEDmatch and get the breakdown on your African dna also. So interesting. You might want to google autosomal dna and find out more.

  11. Start searching for information on the Cherokee Dna and you find that their origins are not the same as Western Natives, but the have been on this continent for over 22,000 years. It may be that they predate the western native people. I am matched 33% to this group plus I have Tibetan, South American native, and Oceana. The last group match the Hopi oral histories. They claim to have built Serpent Mound. It would make sense that they may have inter married with the Cherokee. I also have a recessive gene fro shovel teeth. These were tribal people but their origins are just a little different from the western group.

    1. I have a grandson who has Native American from his father’s side and it is probably Cherokee and it shows up. I have got so much to research with the information I do have that it’s doubtful I’ll ever get to trying to find Cherokee DNA. I can’t even find that branch past 1870 which makes me think they are a white/black mix from slave days.

  12. I read ‘Thirteen Moons” by Charles Frazier, and it talks about how the Cherokee accepted people of all ethnic backgrounds into their tribes. The saw people, not color. They were certainly ahead of their time.

  13. Yes, they did, Kristin. But through most of history man has been willing to sit on his butt and do little or nothing and glean the profit of another’s work, not just the Cherokee. The ones who blow my mind are the former slaves who then go on to own slaves.

    On my mother’s side of the family one of my great, great, great, great uncles was captured by the Kirghiz and held as a slave for 20 years. With help he and a Tartar slave escaped on horseback with provisions and made it back to their separate homes. My family member’s parents were still alive but had long presumed him dead. Eventually, he was a member of a scouting party that came ahead to the United States, returned to the Volga land and brought their German relatives en masse over to the Kansas plains.

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