XX Family Tree

My mother is one of 10 children (5 sisters, 4 brothers). My mother was involved in a genetics research project a couple of years ago. She paid for the genetic testing and recently sent her swab in.

What does this mean? Women have the two XX chromosomes and men have XY. The Y chromosome is passed directly from father to son. In terms of genetics research, tracing the Y chromosome for men only goes back a couple generations. The X for women is ancient and can go back many generations. This genetics test my mother has entered will trace her X chromosome which follows the matrilineal line.

My grandparents a while ago traced our family tree from the U.S. to Canada and back to Ireland/Scotland. We have copies of suriving documentation and some family lore with no documentation. So, this test will finally prove if it's true that one of my ancestors is an Indian princess. Of course given my recent interest, I'm hoping that we'll have some Jewish genes in the mix. The coolest part of this test is that my mother's results will be the same for her 5 sisters and her sisters daughters. So basically thanks to one mouth swab, my mom has covered the X chromosome mapping for 13 family members plus me!