diff --git a/hggit/git2hg.py b/hggit/git2hg.py
index ff619fa30d5e5356385828651317e64390eeaa15_aGdnaXQvZ2l0MmhnLnB5..7ff4913e72dfea51a3e362c52ec8225ed6908bee_aGdnaXQvZ2l0MmhnLnB5 100644
--- a/hggit/git2hg.py
+++ b/hggit/git2hg.py
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
     split = message.split("\n--HG--\n", 1)
     renames = {}
     extra = {}
-    branch = False
+    branch = None
     if len(split) == 2:
         message, meta = split
         lines = meta.split("\n")