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Famous people's mtDNA listed by haplogroup





Famous A individuals

Eva Longoria (photo by Rafael Amado Deras - CC BY 2.0)

The American rock legend and cultural icon Eva Longoria (b. 1975) s an American actress, producer, director, activist and businesswoman. She starred in television series Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2012, for which she was well received and was the recipient of Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. belongs to Native American haplogroup A2 according to the PBS TV series Faces of America.


Famous B individuals

The American rock legend and cultural icon Elvis Presley (1935-1977) belonged to mthaplogroup B according to the book Old World Roots of the Cherokee (p.42). Haplogroup B is a maternal lineage of Native American origins.


Famous C individuals

Yo-Yo Ma (Photo by Kris Krüg - CC BY 2.0)

Yo-Yo Ma (b. 1955) is a Chinese-American cellist. Born in Paris, he spent his schooling years in New York City and was a child prodigy, performing from the age of five. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University and has enjoyed a prolific career as both a soloist performing with orchestras around the world and a recording artist. He has recorded more than 90 albums and has received 18 Grammy Awards. The PBS TV series Faces of America disclosed that he belonged to mtDNA haplogroup C.


Famous H individuals

Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen

Various matrilineal descendants of Empress Maria Theresa were tested and confirmed to belong to the same haplogroup (H with the mutations 152C, 194T and 263G, which most probably corresponds to the H3s subclade). This lineage's most recent common matrilineal ancestor is Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen (1671-1747), whose matrilineal descendants include Emperor Joseph II, Emperor Leopold II, Emperor Ferdinand I, Frederick William II of Prussia, Tsar Peter II of Russia, Queen Marie-Antoinette, William I of the Netherlands, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Leopold II of Belgium.

Matrilineal descendants of Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen, all belonging to mtDNA haplogroup H - © Eupedia.com
Queen Anne of Hungary and Bohemia

Gill et al. (1994) tested the presumptive mitochondrial DNA of Tsaritsa Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia and compared it to that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Both being matrilineal descendants of Queen Victoria, they shared the same haplogroup H. The mutations reported were 263G, 16111T and 16357C (an unknown subclade of H). However, King et al. (2004) compared that mtDNA to the relic of Grand Duchess Elisabeth, sister of Empress Alexandra, and found that the sequences did not match and that the HVRI mutations were actually 16129A and 16327T, which would also correspond to haplogroup H, but a different subclade, which cannot be determined without a full sequence test. Whichever is correct, the lineage of Queen Victoria can be said to belong to mt-haplogroup H. Their lineage can be traced back to Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (1503-1546), whose maternal-line descendants include a great many European aristocrats, including (chronologically) Emperor Maximilian II, Marie de' Medici, Emperor Ferdinand II, Władysław IV Vasa, Louis XIII of France, Philip IV of Spain, Charles II of England, James II of England, Emperor Leopold I, William III of England, Louis XV of France, Ferdinand VI of Spain, Leopold I of Belgium, Pedro V of Portugal, Luís I of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ferdinand I of Romania, George II of Greece, Alexander of Greece, Paul of Greece, and Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Matrilineal descendants of Anne of Bohemia & Hungary, all belonging to mtDNA haplogroup H - © Eupedia.com

Toni de-Dios et al. (2020) recovered Jean-Paul Marat's DNA from the blood-stained paper he was annotating when he was assassinated in 1793 in his bathtub. The French Revolutionary journalist and radical republican politician was found to belong to mt-haplogroup H2a2a1f. His mother came from Castres in the Languedoc.

Lucotte et al. (2010) recovered the DNA of Napoleon Bonaparte from beard hair follicules and compared it to that of his mother, Letizia, and his younger sister Caroline. All three shared the same rare 16184T mutation, which places them within haplogroup H15a1b.

Bogdanowicza et al. (2009) tested the Y-chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA of the exhumed remains of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. They established that he belonged to mt-haplogroup H27 (defined by the mutations 16129A and 16316G).

The personal genomics company 23andMe revealed that the mitochondiral haplogroup of business magnate and multi-billionaire Warren Buffett (born 1930) is H4a. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. He was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world in 2008 and has consistently remained in the top 4 since the annual ranking started in 2000.

Bernie Sanders

The U.S. politician Bernie Sanders (b. 1941) belongs to mt-haplogroup H11a according to the PBS television series Finding Your Roots. Sanders is the longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history.

The merican singer-songwriter, author, actor, and businessman Jimmy Buffett (b. 1946) was found to belong to haplogroup H3 by the personal genomics company 23andMe. He is known for hit songs such as "Come Monday", "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Margaritaville".

Susan Sarandon in 2007 (photo by David Shankbone - CC BY 3.0)

The American actress Susan Sarandon (b. 1946), who won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking, is a member of haplogroup H according to the BBC programme 'Coming Home' about her father's Welsh ancestry.

Dr. Mehmet Oz (photo by David Shankbone - CC BY 3.0)

Dr. Mehmet Oz (b. 1960), a Turkish-American cardiothoracic surgeon, author, and television personality hosting the The Dr. Oz Show, belongs to haplogroup H2a1 according to the PBS TV series Faces of America.



Famous I individuals

Queen Noor Jordan in 2011 (CC BY 2.0)

Queen Noor of Jordan (born 1951) was the fourth wife of King Hussein of Jordan, and queen consort between their marriage in 1978 and his death in 1999. She is the longest-standing member of the Board of Commissioners of the International Commission on Missing Persons. She has been president of the United World Colleges movement since 1995 and an advocate of the anti-nuclear weapons proliferation campaign Global Zero. The queen was a guest in the PBS television series Faces of America, for which she got her DNA tested. Her maternal lineage was revealed to belong to haplogroup I2.


Famous J individuals

David Caramelli and his team tested the supposed remains of Petrarch (1304-1374), the famous humanist, scholar and poet from the Early Italian Renaissance. They managed to identify his maternal haplogroup as J2.

On 12 September 2012, archeologists from the University of Leicester announced that they had discovered what they believed were the remains of King Richard III of England (1452-1485) within the former Greyfriars Friary Church in the city of Leicester (see Exhumation of Richard III). The skeleton's DNA matched exactly the mitochondiral haplogroup (J1c2c) of modern matrilineal descendants of Anne of York, Richard's elder sister, confirming the identity of the medieval king.

Edward IV of England (1442-1483) was Richard III's elder brother and predecessor as King of England. Having the same mother, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, both kings would have shared the same mtDNA haplogroup.

Mario Batali (Photo by Charles Haynes - CC BY-SA 2.0)

Mario Batali (subclade J1b3a) is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. He is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. His haplogroup was revealed in Faces of America.

Ximena Navarrete (Photo by Abhisit Vejjajiva - Flickr - CC BY 2.0)

Ximena Navarrete is a Mexican actress, TV Host, model, and beauty queen who won Miss Universe 2010, becoming the second Mexican to do so.


Famous K individuals

Ötzi the Iceman, Europe's oldest natural human mummy, dating from 5,300 years ago, had his full genome sequenced (the oldest European genome ever tested) and was found to belong to haplogroup K1f.

Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols (subclade K2a2a) is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He is one of a small group of people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. His haplogroup was revealed in Faces of America.

Larry David at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival (photo by David Shankbone - CC BY 3.0)

Larry David (b. 1947), an American comedian, writer, actor, playwright, and television producer best known for being the creator of the television series Seinfeld and the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, was revealed to be a member of mt-haplogroup K1a9 by the PBS television series Finding Your Roots.

Craig Venter (CC BY 2.5)

Craig Venter (subclade K1a3a) is an American biologist and entrepreneur. Running against the U.S. government-funded Human Genome Project, Venter founded his own private company, Celera Genomics, and used the method of shotgun sequencing to complete the first human genome (his own) in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of the Human Genome Project. He also created the first cell with a synthetic genome. Venter was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100's list of the most influential people in the world.

Meryl Streep (Photo by Jack Mitchell - CC BY-SA 3.0)

Meryl Streep (subclade K1b2b) is an American actress of theater, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest film actresses of all time. Streep is one of the six actors to have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. She has also received 29 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight—more nominations, and more competitive (non-honorary) wins than any other actor (male or female). Her work has also earned her two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, two Australian Film Institute awards, five Grammy Award nominations, and five Drama Desk Award nominations, among several others. Her haplogroup was revealed in Faces of America.

Steven Pinker (Photo by Rebecca Goldstein - CC BY-SA 3.0)

Steven Pinker (subclade K2a2a) is a Canadian experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.

Katie Couric at the Vanity Fair party for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Photo by David Shankbone - CC BY-SA 3.0)

Katie Couric (b. 1957) is an American television journalist, author and talk show host. She has been a television host on all Big Three television networks in the United States (ABC, CBS and NBC) as well as the global news anchor for Yahoo News. Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Geographic Genographic Project revealed her haplogroup in an interview for NBCNews's Today show.

Stephen Colbert (Photo by David Shankbone - CC BY-SA 3.0)

Stephen Colbert (b. 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is known as the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits. His haplogroup was revealed in Faces of America.


Famous L individuals

Nelson Mandela (photo by South Africa The Good News / www.sagoodnews.co.za - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

The Origins Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand tested the DNA of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), the famous South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and determined that he belonged to mt-haplogroup L0d.

Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice (b. 1954) is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State. She was the first female African-American Secretary of State. Her haplogroup was disclosed in the PBS TV series Finding Your Roots.

Malcolm Gladwell (Photo by Kris Krüg - CC BY 2.0)

Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist and author. He has written five popular pyschology and sociology books, which were all on The New York Times Best Seller list. His haplogroup was reported to be L3f1 in Faces of America.


Famous M individuals

K. Drosou et al. (2020) analysed the DNA of two high-status Egyptian priests from the 12th Dynasty from what is known as the Tomb of Two Brothers, Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht. Their mtDNA haplogroup was assessed as M1a1. Their genetic analysis demonstrated that the two men were actually half brothers, sharing the same mother but different fathers.


Famous R individuals

Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997), the first wife of Prince Charles, as well as their children Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (b. 1982) and Prince Harry (b. 1984) were shown to belong to mt-haplogroup R30b by a DNA test taken by Prince William. R30b is very rare lineage of Indian origin inherited from Diana's great-great-great-great grandmother, Eliza Newark. She was the housekeeper of Theodore Forbes (1788-1820), a Scot who worked for the East India Company in the port city of Surat in the early 19th century. They had three children together, one of whom became the matrilineal ancestor of Princess Diana.


Famous T individuals

Elizabeth of Luxembourg, Queen of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia

Ivanov et al. (1996) sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Grand Duke of Russia Georgij Romanov in order to establish the authenticity of the remains of his brother, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. They also compared the sequence to that of two living matrilineal relatives. The mtDNA all matched and fitted into haplogroup T2 (with heteroplasmy at position 16169). Retracing the matrilineal genealogy of Nicholas II leads to Elizabeth of Luxembourg (1409-1442), Queen of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia, and daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. She married Albert V, archduke of Austria, who would become the first ruler of Germany. Her female-line descendants include a great number of European nobles, such as Charles I of England, George I, George III and George V of Great Britain, Frederick William I of Prussia, Charles X Gustav of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Olav V of Norway, and George I of Greece.

Matrilineal descendants of Elizabeth of Luxembourg, all belonging to mtDNA haplogroup T2 - © Eupedia.com


Stone et al. (2001) analysed the presumptive remains of Jesse James (1847-1882), the famous American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber from the US state of Missouri. He was the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Jesse James's remains were compared against two maternal relatives and all were found to belong to mt-haplogroup T2.


Famous V individuals

The mitochondrial haplogroup of Benjamin Franklin was determined through descendants testing of his maternal aunt, Doras Folger. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a major figure in the American Enlightenment. Political theorist, statesnman, diplomat, scientist, he is also known for being the inventor of the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove.

Bono at the 2014 Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)

Population geneticist Spencer Wells, the director of the Genographic Project, announced that Bono, the lead vocalist for the Irish rock band U2, belonged to mtDNA haplogroup V.


Famous W individuals

Martha Stewart at the 2009 premiere of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City (photo by David Shankbone - CC BY 3.0)

Martha Stewart (b. 1941) is an American businesswoman, writer, and television personality. She has written numerous bestselling books, is the publisher of the Martha Stewart Living magazine, and hosted two long-running syndicated television shows, Martha, which ran from 2005 to 2012, and Martha Stewart Living, which ran from 1993 to 2005. Her haplogroup was disclosed as being W6 by the PBS TV series Finding Your Roots. She was born Martha Helen Kostyra and is of Polish decsent.


Famous X individuals

Abraham Lincoln

The Nancy Hanks Lincoln mtDNA Study traced back the mitochondrial DNA lineage of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). The testing of matrilineal relatives of Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, provided evidence that the the 16th president of the United States belonged to the very rare haplogroup X1c.


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