A question to resolve with mtDNA

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Berlin, 7 June 2025.

A great example of something to resolve with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) involves the wives of John Carter (1715-1783). John, my 7th-great-grandfather, had three wives:

• Elizabeth Armistead (1716, died about 1738)
• Sarah Kenyon (died about 1763); my 7th-great-grandmother
• Hannah Chew (died in 1821)

John had two daughters with Elizabeth, four daughters with Sarah, and five daughters with Hannah. If the mtDNA trail runs to the present through those three lines, then testing descendants of those wives would give mtDNA haplogroups which should be different. My own line descends down from a great-granddaughter of Sarah, Emily Ann Heslop Ballard. There are female descendants of Emily who could potentially take a mtDNA test. 

There is a Carter Society of Virginia (website not currently working, but the group has a Facebook page). Perhaps this question is one the Carter Society has already started looking into.

A good example of what such a mtDNA study could provide can be seen in the Spring 2024 issue of the Journal of Genetic Genealogy, on the Identification of the Mitochondrial Haplogroup of Elizabeth Martiau (PDF). She was my 9th-great-grandmother.