The FTDNA Terrell Surname Project

by Conrad W. Terrill, 20 July 2021

Note that by "Terrell" we mean any variant of "T*R*L", where the *'s are vowels and the R and L may be single or double. The objective of the project is to sort out worldwide Terrells in order to determine which are descended from which common ancestors, and to give those Terrells who do not well know their paternal line a means of tracing it back further, by connecting with those who do so know. DOR-Terrill utilizes the Terrell Surname Project to discover new descendants of Roger1, who are thereupon invited to join our Modal Roger1 group.

The project was hosted by World Families Network from some years before 2010 to May of 2018, when, not up to the FTDNA-required Herculean task of bringing their 1500 surname projects up to the new data privacy standards, World Families called it quits. World Families was happy to turn over to me the administration of this one surname project in January of 2010, while they continued to host it. In May of 2018 the Terrell Surname Project reverted to FTDNA hosting. Project member David Stumpf, a descendant of a Terrell, volunteered as a co-administrator in November, 2018.

The URL for the project is https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/terrell, which takes you to the "About us" overview page. From there you can click on any of the tabs maintained by me, including "Background", "Goals", "News", "Results", and, only if you are an actual member of the project, "DNA Results". There are also other tabs which are maintained automatically by FTDNA. Not having the privilege rights to change the project's structure I have decided to use the "Results" tab for "Paternal lines" and the "News tab" for "Current project summation".

All but the "DNA Results" page are open to the public. That one page is open only to project members, in order to comply with current data privacy standards. As stated on the overview page, project membership is open only to paternal line descendants of a "Terrell" who have been, or are willing to be, yDNA tested by FTDNA. A relative of such a person is welcome to manage a membership on that person's behalf. Project membership is also open to persons who are yDNA matches to Terrells, and therefore believe that they are paternally descended from a Terrell.

The paternal lines (on the Results page) are a very important component of the project—as important as the yDNA test results themselves—since it is those paternal lines which allow us to sort out the various Terrell lines, to permit other Terrells the possibility of determining where they might fit in. For those of us whose paper trail research suggests a good possibility of being paternally descended from Roger1 Terrill this project offers a very good way of "certifying" it. If your yDNA test results do not closely match our "Modal Roger1" then of course you have certified that you are not a paternal line descendant of Roger1.

The "News" page summarizes what has been learned from the project so far. Each "lineage" pertains to a Terrell line completely unrelated to any other Terrell line. A lineage is established when two distantly related Terrells are found to be a yDNA match. A number of major lineages have been established.