huh? Results in on momma, me, and selena...

Your mtDNA results identify you as a member of haplogroup D. This haplogroup is the final destination of a genetic journey that began some 150,000 years ago with an ancient mtDNA haplogroup called L3.

Haplogroup L3 occurs only in Africa, but on that continent its derivatives are found nearly everywhere. L3's subclades are most prevalent in East Africa.

This ancient lineage reflects an early divergence from humanity's common genetic coalescence point.

"Mitochondrial Eve," the common ancestor of all living humans, was born in Africa some 150,000 years ago. All existing MtDNA diversity began with Eve and it remains greatest, and subsequently oldest, in Africa.

Y chromosome polymorphisms on the male line of descent also point to an African origin for all humans, but our male common ancestor, "Adam," lived only about 60,000 years ago.

MtDNA and the Y chromosome are independent parts of our genetic makeup and each tells a different tale of successive genetic mutations over the eons. That is why their approximate coalescence points are different. Yet while the dates vary, both paths point emphatically to a surprisingly recent African origin for all humans.

The oldest known fossil remains of anatomically modern humans were found in Ethiopia's Omo River Valley. The skeletons, known as Omo I and Omo II, have been dated to about 195,000 years ago.

Although haplogroup L3 does not appear outside of Africa it is an important part of the human migrations from that continent to the rest of the world.

A single person of the L3 lineage gave rise to the M and N haplogroups some 80,000 years ago.

All Eurasian mtDNA lineages are subsequently descended from these two groups.

The African Ice Age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. But about 50,000 years ago a period of warmer temperatures and moist climate made even parts of the arid Sahara habitable. The climatic shift likely spurred hunter-gatherer migrations into a steppe-like Sahara—and beyond.

This "Saharan Gateway" led humans out of Africa to the Middle East. The route they took is uncertain. They may have traveled north down the Nile to the Mediterranean coast and the Sinai. Alternatively, they may have crossed what was then a land bridge connecting the Bab al Mandab to Arabia, after which they either skirted the then-lush, verdant eastern coast of the Red Sea or headed east along the Gulf of Aden towards the Arabian Sea.

When the climate again turned arid, expanding Saharan sands slammed the Saharan Gateway shut. The desert was at its driest between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago, and during this period Middle East migrants became isolated from Africa.

From their new Middle East location, however, they would go on to populate much of the world.

M is a macro-haplogroup whose various sub groups are found in Eastern Eurasia, East Asia (M7, M8), America (C, D), and the Indian subcontinent—though not in Europe.

The M lineage arose from the African haplogroup defined by L3. With haplogroup N, this lineage traces the first human migrations out of Africa.

Haplogroup M ancestors were part of a great coastal migration that took place some 50,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers skilled at seaside living wandered along the coasts of the southern Arabian Peninsula, India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia.

This ancient southern coastline was drowned by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age. The rising waters also swallowed most archaeological traces of these early coastal-dwelling peoples.

Yet in places their physical footprint endures. Some of the fast-moving migrants reached and populated distant Australia soon after leaving Africa. Australian archaeological evidence, such as rock art, confirms their presence as early as 40,000 or perhaps even 60,000 years ago.

Haplogroup M is a broad group comprised of many as-yet undefined branches. Learning more about such lineages will add further clarity to the big picture of human genetic diversity, and is a primary goal of the Genographic Project.

Haplogroup D descended from this M lineage.

Native Americans belong to one of five different haplogroups. D is one of those lineages. This line of descent is also common in Northeast Asia and particularly in Siberia.

The geographic distribution of haplogroup D lends genetic evidence to the most commonly held theory of American settlement.

Some 25,000 to 30,000 years ago an ancient "land bridge" called Beringia connected Asia and Alaska. Beringia centers the long-held theory that the first Americans entered the continent from Siberia in pursuit of plentiful herds of reindeer, musk ox, and mammoth.

Beringia was a significant landmass (some 620 miles or 1000 kilometers across) that was exposed when ice age sea levels were some 300 feet (90 meters) lower than at present.

As the climate warmed, rising seas gradually inundated Beringia—isolating North Americans in their new continent.

Yet 10,000 to 25,000 years ago vast reaches of glacial ice blocked human passage out of Alaska and the Laurentide and Cordilleran sheets covered most of Canada and the northern U.S. Somehow, early migrants surmounted this daunting obstacle and lived south of the ice sheets by about 11,500 years ago.

One theory suggests that they did so via an ice-free corridor along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. Another suggests a Pacific coast route. Small coastal pockets of non-glaciated land might have allowed migrants to leapfrog down the coast to a point south of the great ice sheets, from which they gradually spread inland along coastal river valleys.

Whatever their route around the ice, these early explorers began a line of descent that would spread across the Americas.