As far as I know, the science stands up, but many of the pop-conclusions
don't. Those from European backgrounds who have European mitochondria (that
is, all their maternal females were European) have mitochondrial DNA that
fits one of 7 'families', and therefore have one of the 7 "Daughters of Eve"
in their ancestry somewhere.

That doesn't however mean that there were only 7 women in Europe that we all
came from. It simply means that everyone has one of seven women in their
history, if that makes sense. All the women on your father's side don't
count. Any female that happened to have sons failed to pass on her
mitochondrial DNA. And there's been an aweful lot of interbreeding between
the 'families' of course, but its only the maternal mtDNA that counts. If
you go back only 64e3olp (Shmogg says hi) 10 generations, you have 1024
direct ancestors in that generation, all of whom contributed in some way to
your genetic makeup. Only 1 woman in that generation, though, passed her
mitochondrial DNA to you - your mother's mother's mother's mother's etc etc
mother.

BTW, you can do the same sort of trace with the Y chromosome of men, as it
can only can from from the father. Then only the father's father's father
etc etc etc can be traced, ignoring any influence of the mother's father and
his lineage. I don't recall, however, any mention of "the 7 sons of Adam" in
the press recently.

Tish would no doubt be able to describe this much better than me, but she's
rather busy at the moment. Alive, doing OK, but as overwhelmed and tired as
a first time Mum to a 4 week old baby can be.

I hope I'm making sense, I'm being painfully reminded that Shmogg needs his
claws clipped, but don't have the heart to boot him off my lap -  his
kneading is drawing blood.

Yowie