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Description
About the Corders
Although the Corder surname is not particularly common, much confusion has resulted from the fact that the primary two 18th century American Corder family groups lived in relative proximity to one another in Virginia. It is the goal of the Corder Family DNA project to untangle years of confused paper trails, speculation, and misinformation and to correctly connect Corder groups -- where possible -- on the direct male lines. Please help our project grow. If you are a direct-line male Corder, order your test today!
Family Tree DNA asks that each tester provide the name of their earliest known ancestors (EKA), but this Surname Project asks that you provide only the name of your earliest DOCUMENTED direct line male ancestor. Since there are so many errors in lineages on the Internet, it is important that testers give us the name of their earliest DOCUMENTED ancestor, even if you can only trace reliably back into the 19th or 20th century. You can update your earliest ancestor information by logging into your account and selecting Account Settings, then Genealogy, then Earliest Known Ancestor.
English Corders
We suspect that most of our Corder testers originated from the Corders we find in the records of 17th and 18th century Suffolk and Essex counties in England. Autosomal DNA testing indicates a distant connection between descendants of the Gestingthorpe Corders and both the American Fauquier County Corders and the Edward Corder lineage, leading us to believe that both main American lines likely inherited the Corder name maternally from the Suffolk/Essex Corders at some point in the distant past.
We currently have two lineages of English Corders represented. Descendants of William Corder of Gestingthorpe, Essex ENG, b ca 1740-1750, and his wife, Frances Warren are represented by the I-P37 Haplogroup in yellow on the Results page. Descendants of John Corder of Suffolk, b 1754, and his wife Martha King, are represented by the R-M269 Haplogroup, also in yellow. We are always in search of additional native English testers who can confidently document their Corder lines back to the 17th or 18th centuries. If you fit this description and would be willing to test, or know someone who does, please contact the admin at info.itsallrelative at gmail.com.
American Corders
Most American Corders descend from one of two early 18th-century Virginia families. The Fauquier County Virginia Corders are descendants of William Corder, born in Virginia circa 1703 (married Alice LNU), and William's contemporary and probable close kinsman, John Corder (married Patience LNU).
The Edward Corder Family traces back to Edward Corder Sr. who was deported from London in 1722 and settled in Frederick County Virginia circa 1738. (His land, called The Turkey Tract, was on Lord Fairfax's Manor of Greenway Court so this group of Corders is sometimes referred to as the Greenway Court Corders or the Turkey Tract Corders.)
These two groups of Corders lived just a few miles from each other, resulting in confusion and uncertainty among researchers regarding whether there was a relationship between them. While Y-DNA testing has shown that they do not share a direct-line male ancestor, as stated before, atDNA testing does indicate a link between these two families and the Corders from Suffolk and Essex.
Misattributed Paternal Events
Within the two main American Corder groups, there are additional divergent Y-DNA signatures resulting from both known and unidentified Misattributed Paternal Events (MPEs). In most of those cases, it is either certain or likely that the testers who carry the Corder surname simply inherited the name maternally. It appears that among the Fauquier County Corders, a later John Corder lineage (John Corder b1770 d 1850, married Catherine Utterback) had a MPE somewhere along the line, nevertheless, these Corders are most certainly connected to the Fauquier County Virginia family group, regardless of the Y-DNA.
The Edward Corder group has a particularly curious and confusing situation in which descendants of Edward Corder Jr. and Susannah Oney's eldest son, Benjamin, belong to the R1b Haplogroup, while descendants of two of their younger sons, Elijah and Stephen, are from the J-1 Haplogroup. Typically in a situation like this, the eldest son is likely the MPE, however, in this case, evidence suggests otherwise. Descendants of the younger sons, Stephen and Elijah, have a high frequency of matches with testers surnamed Crouch and Baker. The results of several Y-700 tests indicate that Stephen and Elijah Corder of Montgomery and Tazewell Co VA were probably the biological sons of David Crouch, a neighbor of the Corders between 1770-1799 on Peak Creek in Montgomery Co VA. The relationship between the Corder-Crouches and Bakers likely pre-dates 1700 and was likely in England.
To confuse things even further, one of Edward Jr. and Susannah's probable granddaughters, Elinor Corder (it is unclear whether she was a daughter of Stephen or Richard Corder), had a child with an unrelated William Baker from Kentucky, so there is a yet another Baker Y-DNA signature among Edward Corder's descendants -- just not the same Bakers who are related to the Corder-Crouches.)
Seeking Additional Testers
The Corder Surname Project is seeking additional testers from:
1. Native English direct-line male descendants of any Corder who can document his Corder lineage prior to 1750.
2. Direct-line male descendants of Elijah Corder b ca 1795 in Virginia, married Mary “Polly” Glossop (aka Gillespie) in Greene Co TN 5 Apr 1814.
3. Direct-line male descendants of Edward Corder III or Richard Corder, sons of Edward Corder Jr./II and Susannah Oney Corder of Montgomery and Tazewell Counties, VA.
We hope you can help us untangle our convoluted Corders. More information is always better. Have your direct-line male Corder family member tested and join us here!
Requirements
A Surname Project traces members of a family that share a common surname. They are of the most interest in cultures where surnames are passed on from father to son like the Y-Chromosome. This project is for males taking a Y-Chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) test. Thus, the individual who tests must be a male who wants to check his direct paternal line (father's father's father's...) with a Y-DNA12, Y-DNA37, Y-DNA67, or Y-DNA111 test and who has one of the surnames listed for the project. Females do not carry their father's Y-DNA. Females who would like to check their father's direct paternal line can have a male relative with his surname order a Y-DNA test. Females can also order an mtDNA test for themselves such as the mtDNAPlus test or the mtFullSequence test and participate in an mtDNA project. Both men and women may take our autosomal Family Finder test to discover recent relationships across all family lines.
Surnames In This Project
Baker, Corder, Crouch, Day, Fauquier County Virginia, Frederick County Virginia, Greenway Court, Ogan, Oney, Turkey Tract