Female line information: mitogroup W

All members of mitogroup W can trace their mitochondrial DNA to one woman who is thought to have lived about 60 – 80 thousand years ago, probably somewhere in the Near East. This woman belonged to a group of humans that likely moved initially North across the Caucasus mountain range (modern-day Georgia and Azerbaijan), and later on westwards into Europe about 25,000 years ago.

Today, members of mitogroup W are mainly found in Europe and in populations around the Western Ural Mountains, but are also found in India, Iran, Pakistan and Thailand. Overall, members of mitogroup W make up about 1 to 2 percent of these populations, making it one of the rarer mitogroups. Nonetheless, mitogroup W members are more common in some populations, for example in Finland, the Basque region of Spain and France, Iran and Pakistan.