The past decade has witnessed numerous publications on mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), which have great potential in regenerative medicine. MSC from various types of origins exhibit different characteristics, which may relate to the maintenance role of MSC in that specific source. Reports have emerged that among the most widely investigated sources, umbilical cord (UC) or umbilical cord blood (UCB) derived MSC throw advantages over bone marrow (BM) derived MSC due to their close to fetal origin. Here the methodologies used to separate MSC from UC or UCB, and the intrinsic properties, including proliferation capacity, multipotency, cytokine profile, cell surface protein expression and gene expression, between UC, UCB and BM derived MSC, are discussed in details, though may not in a full picture, for the first time.