The next DNA trail I'm tracing is the path of my paternal grandmother, Blossom (Wagner) Gibson's mtDNA. I've traced this DNA back to Anna Kreutzer, my 6th-great-grandmother, who married my 6th-great-grandfather Georg Adam Salfer in Rosshaupt in the Bohemia region of the Austrian Empire in 1756. My grandma inherited it from her mother, Rosie Sitzman [Zitzmann], who married Charles Frederick Wagner.
Blossom had three daughters, one from her first marriage and two from her second. I know mtDNA is also passed on to male children, but as they can't pass it on to their kids, they are left out of this analysis. Her first daughter had three kids, one girl and two boys. The daughter, my cousin, had two children but both are boys, so they can't pass on the mtDNA. As it looks like they aren't having any more kids, the mtDNA on that branch ends with my cousin.
Blossom's second daughter had two kids, both daughters. The older daughter has three kids, one daughter and two boys. The younger daughter has one child, a daughter. So both of my cousins on that branch each have a daughter that can pass the mtDNA from my grandma on down to another generation.
Blossom's youngest daughter had three kids, one girl and two boys (noticing a pattern here?). The daughter, my cousin, has two kids, a boy and a girl, with a third on the way (so far gender is unknown). But my cousin's daughter gives us another candidate for passing on grandma's mtDNA to a new generation.
So between my two aunts that have girl grandchildren, there are three girls of the latest generation that could pass on grandma's mtDNA. Given that there are currently 18 kids of that generation, I'd say that having a full 1/6 of them be girls in the direct maternal line is pretty good. Hopefully they'll be able to keep Anna Kreutzer's DNA going to a new generation of descendants.
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