Good afternoon everybody!
A member of the Geni family has been gracious enough to have her mtDNA full sequence tested as a directline maternal descendant of Catharina van Paliacatta. The result is L0a2a2a1.
One can be excused for automatically assuming that this haplogroup is African. It is true that mtDNA L (mitochondrial Eve) and it's various early subclades (L0, L1, L2, L3 etc.) have their origins in Africa. However, this result is unique in that it belongs to a rare Indian lineage found in the Dawoodi Bohra population from South India, in the Tamil Nadu region where Pulicat is located.
As you well know, mtDNA haplogroup "L" is the ancestral matriarch of all women today (otherwise known as mitochondrial Eve).
As far as L0a2a2a1 goes, there are the following unique characteristics that differentiate it from the other L0, L1, L2, L3 etc. haplogroups:
1. Whereas the other early mtDNA L branches originate in Africa. L0a is found at a frequency of almost 25% in Hadramawt (Yemen). This is unique to this specific subclade (branch) of L.
2. L0a2 is found at a frequency of 17.5% in Hadramawt (Yemen). This means that 17.5% of all females tested from Yemen were found to be positive for the L0a2 SNP (mutation).
3. L0a2a2a was found in two samples from the USA, one from the Dominican Republic, three from the Near East (Oman, Yemen, Saudi-Arabia), and one each from Kenya and Mozambique.
4. In a different journal article, L0a2a2a was found in three individuals from Oman, Yemen, and Saudi-Arabia, together with one individual from Mozambique, three from Zambia, and two from Kenya.
5. On the whole, the continental region that is best represented in L0a2a is the Southeast and East Africa, followed by the Middle East.
6. L0a2a2 has been observed among Indian Muslim women.
7. Individuals in the Dawoodi Bohra South population in India and those in Western Yemen show an exact match, belonging to the rare L0a2a2 haplogroup.
This match is particularly interesting, as Eaaswarkhanth et al. (2010) had hypothesized that L0a2a2 individuals in the Dawoodi Bohra South to be evidence of a migration of a Shia sect of Islam from Yemen, where L0a2 was found at ~3% (based on Kivisild et al. (2004) samples).
Using a larger and more widespread Yemeni sample, a 2010 study confirmed an exact haplotype match between Yemeni and Indian L0a2a2 lineages, indicating a relatively recent (though likely small) migration from Yemen to India.
This migration may have been motivated by severe persecution by the Sunni majority of the Shia in Yemen sometime after the 12th century AD, and is unlikely to be a remnant of the initial out-of-Africa migrations, due to its young age estimate (10300 years before the present) and its absence from other non-Muslim Indian populations (Eaaswarkhanth et al. 2010).
8. L0a2a2 attests to a specific migration event from Yemen into the Dawoodi Bohra populations of South and West India.
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n3/abs/ejhg2009168a.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532489/
http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/E0/04/19/81/00001/non_a.pdf
