Lea Coryell, Michael Waas & Adam Brown, 'The Surprising Origins of the Coryell Family of Colonial New Jersey,' American Ancestors (NEHGS), Winter 2023 — Coryell Y-DNA = Sephardic Curiel (E-BY145801) [verbatim] [DNA data: high; genealogical synthesis: medium-high]

Transcription and notes

Filename: NOW ON DISK (2026-06-08): (image held in the family archive) (downloaded from (image held in the family archive); source page https://avotaynuonline.com/2023/01/the-surprising-origins-of-the-coryell-family-of-colonial-new-jersey/). Authors: Lea Coryell (Administrator, Correll/Coryell Y-DNA Project; retired Library of Congress librarian), Michael Waas (Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services; co-administrator, Avotaynu DNA), Adam Brown (Director, Avotaynu Research Partnership). Published American Ancestors magazine (NEHGS), Winter 2023, p. 27 ff.

Identification

A genetic-genealogy study, fruit of a collaboration between the Correll/Coryell Y-DNA Project (Lea Coryell, formed 2009) and the Avotaynu DNA Project (a multi-disciplinary study DNA-testing Sephardic-descended populations since 2016). Epistemic grade: the Y-DNA data is primary-source-grade biological evidence; the documentary reconstruction of the Curiel family is medium-high published-secondary.

Why it matters for Cooper research: This is the highest-leverage source yet for pr.16 Cooper-Coriell Y-DNA mystery. It identifies the documented Coryell family's Y-haplogroup and traces it to a named Sephardic-Jewish family — and the haplogroup is a subclade of the very E-M35 result the catalog records for Chris & Eric Cooper at J.76.

Data from the document [verbatim / close transcription]

• The documented progenitor: "On September 1, 1702, a man named Abraham Coriell registered a cattle mark in Piscataway Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey" — his earliest record. Birth ~1663, died ~1750 (per WikiTree Coriell-36; the article itself gives no dates). Abraham was alive throughout the 1695–1710 window and for ~40 years after — he is not a candidate "died ~1700" decedent.
• His four sons (per Emma Finney Welch's hypothesis, now DNA-supported): David (1704–1779), Emanuel (1707–1749), Abraham, Samuel (d. 1760). (Abraham-the-son "has no known living descendants.")
• Y-DNA result: "The Correll/Coryell Y-DNA Project tested men in each of the thirteen descendant lineages… All carry the Y-DNA variation E-BY145801." Sequencing by FamilyTreeDNA; 13 male descendants of David, Emanuel, and Samuel.
• The Curiel identification: the E-BY145801 line links the American Coryells to Jacob Curiel of Hamburg — "born in Coimbra, Portugal, on September 26, 1587, as Duarte Nunes da Costa" — of "the Curiels, a notable Sephardic Jewish family that suffered forced religious conversion and persecution during the Inquisition. The family later found refuge in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire." Jacob d. 1664 Hamburg.
• The "French Huguenot" origin OVERTURNED: "'The most prevalent idea,' Coryell family historian Ingham Coryell (1906–1986) once wrote, 'is that the Coryells were French Huguenots.'… this belief persisted despite the absence of any corroborating primary source documents." The DNA refutes it.
• A 1981 anticipation: James W. Thompson wrote to the Coryell Newsletter — "In Amsterdam… there was a family of Sephardic Jews named Curiel, in which family the names Abraham, David, and Moses all appear. Are they our ancestors?" (The Coryell given names match the Amsterdam Curiel given names.)
• The gap: "the intervening generations are unknown" between Jacob Curiel (d. 1664 Hamburg) and Abraham Coriell (fl. 1702 NJ). No arrival record for the family in America has been found; the surname first appears in the Raritan Valley ~1663.
• NY harbor detail: a Coryell descendant "was captured by the British and reportedly died aboard a prison ship in New York harbor" (= John Coryell 3-22, already at I.48).
• A DOCUMENTED NPE inside the Coryell family (added 2026-07-18 from the full PDF — sidebar "The Coddington-Coryells (I-FT357299)"): "Our study discovered a previously unknown misattributed parentage that resulted in David A. Coryell (1758–1835) of Bernards Twp., New Jersey, putatively the great-grandson of founder Abraham Coriell, carrying an entirely unrelated Y-DNA variation, I-FT357299. David appears to have inherited this variation from a member of the Coddington family of Woodbridge Twp., N.J. Coauthor Lea Coryell's brick wall ancestor Richard F. Coryell (1794–1845) of Warren Twp., N.J., shared this variation, and we believe Richard F. was David A. Coryell's son." ⇒ the study itself proves that surname-vs-Y-DNA divergence happened in this exact family: a man surnamed Coryell, believed a Coryell descendant, actually carried Coddington Y-DNA. Directly relevant to [pr.16]'s open question (B) why is the surname "Cooper": NPEs / misattributed parentage are demonstrably present in the Coriell orbit, so a Cooper-surnamed man carrying Coriell (E-BY145801) Y-DNA is the mirror-image of a documented, published case.
• The intervening generations "might well have included gentile women": the article notes Jacob Curiel's brother David "apparently fathered children out of wedlock, as the Portuguese Jewish communities in northern Europe had more than their fair share of men crossing social boundaries and having children with non-Jewish women" — i.e. the Hamburg/Amsterdam → NJ bridge is expected to be a messy, non-clean-patrilineal trail.
• Article pagination + on-disk: American Ancestors (NEHGS), Winter 2023, pp. 27–31; reprinted by permission at Avotaynu Online, 15 Jan 2023. A second on-disk copy is now at (image held in the family archive) (= the same article as the Societies/Avotaynu/AB-158…pdf copy above).

Catalog impact (interpretive)

1. The [J.76] "E-M35 anomaly" is now EXPLAINED — it is the Sephardic Curiel signature

J.76 records Chris & Eric Cooper's Y-haplogroup as E-M35 (12-marker prediction), and flags it as "anomalous for a Western European Cooper line… predominantly North African / Mediterranean / Levantine." E-BY145801 is a downstream subclade of E-M35. So the documented Coryell family sits inside the same broad haplogroup the catalog already has for Chris — and the Mediterranean/Levantine character that read as a "mystery" is exactly what a Sephardic Curiel origin predicts. The anomaly is no longer anomalous: it points at the Coriell/Curiel line.

2. pr.16 Theory 3 (Sephardic-Jewish-via-Holland) — revived and DNA-grounded

The catalog had weakened Theory 3 per Honeyman 1916 (M.23: "French-Corsican Huguenot 1663"). This study shows Honeyman's French-Huguenot reading was the unsupported family lore, and the Sephardic-Curiel-via-Amsterdam origin is the DNA-supported truth. Theory 3 is revived at genetic-genealogy tier — the strongest tier available.

3. The Cooper "Holland" tradition may be the Curiel-in-Amsterdam thread

Under pr.2 Hypothesis E (Daniel Sr's biological father a Coriell) + the Coriell-Y-line being Curiel-of-Amsterdam, the Cooper family tradition's "came from Holland" + "Low-Dutch wife" could be the Amsterdam Sephardic-Curiel refuge surfacing in oral memory. This reframes the pr.2 "should we search Holland?" decision: if Chris's terminal SNP is E-BY145801, the right Holland target is Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish (Sephardic Curiel / Nunes da Costa) community records, NOT Dutch-Reformed / English-Separatist registers.

4. Does NOT directly explain the 1695–1710 death window

Abraham Coriell (the documented founder) lived ~1663–~1750. There is no documented Coriell male death 1695–1710 — confirming the pr.2 four-corpus probate null. A Coriell who "died ~1700 on the voyage" (Hyp E) would sit in the unknown intervening generations (Hamburg 1664 → NJ 1702), not in the documented record.

Decisive next test (the highest-leverage action this surfaces)

Confirm Chris's (and/or Eric's) terminal SNP via a BigY-700 upgrade and test for E-BY145801. The catalog only has a 12-marker E-M35 prediction ([J.76] already flags the BigY upgrade as a follow-up). If Chris is E-BY145801, that is a near-lock placing his biological paternal line inside the documented Coriell/Curiel family — converting the whole "Cooper-Coriell mystery" into a solved Sephardic-Curiel paternal origin, and making the Avotaynu / Correll-Coryell Y-DNA Project a direct research partner (they hold the Curiel intervening-generation research). If Chris is E-M35 but not E-BY145801, his line branches off the Coryell subclade upstream — still Sephardic-E-M35, but a separate entry into the haplogroup.

Status

[verbatim] for the quoted article content; the catalog-impact synthesis is interpretive.

Follow-up

• DONE / CONFIRMED 2026-06-03 — Chris's BigY-700 (FTDNA kit #10638) terminal haplogroup = E-BY145801 per the FTDNA Discover page → J.154. Chris is a confirmed member of this exact Coryell/Curiel line. Remaining: pin the generation via the Match Time Tree (see J.154 + pr.16).
• Contact the Correll/Coryell Y-DNA Project (Lea Coryell) + Avotaynu DNA (Adam Brown / Michael Waas) — compare Chris's haplotype to the 13-man E-BY145801 panel; obtain their Curiel intervening-generation research.
• If E-BY145801 confirmed: pivot any "Holland" search to Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish (Curiel / Nunes da Costa) records (per the pr.2 Holland-decision note).
• Acquire the full American Ancestors Winter 2023 article (NEHGS) for the descendant-lineage chart + any further intervening-generation detail.