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COURTRIGHT, CORTRIGHT,CUTRIGHT, KORTRYK and KORTRIGHT are among the spellings of the surname in historical records as well as LOW(E), MICHIELS and REYERS. Family members have been at all levels of society from modestly successful farmers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to wealthy New York tycoons and a First Lady, Elizabeth Kortright, Mrs. James Monroe.
We anticipate that DNA test results will supplement traditional family history research and relate to it to define various branches of the family or families, and to help individuals find where they fit in the family tree. At the present time (February, 2006), seven DNA analyses have provided us with at least five distinct family lines with the surnames COURTRIGHT, CURTRIGHT and LOWE. Click on "Results" for more detail.
If you expect to participate in any DNA surname project, you should be aware that you might be surprised by the results. Regardless of the apparent quality of the paper trail used to develop a family tree, there is always the possibility of a "non-parental event" buried in your data. Given the younger deaths due to childbirth, diseases, dangers in the workplace, and warfare, there was a greater tendency in the earlier years for orphaned children to be dispersed among relatives. Whether formally or informally adopted such children often adopted the surname of the household in which they were raised. Of course, there is also the possibility of a child resulting from an extra-marital affair of which the husband was unware, or accepted. In any event, the result might be that the person being tested does not match others of what appears on paper to be a single line of descent and the "non-paternal event might have occurred 200 - 300 years ago. (I have read somewhere that a non-parental event might occur in 2 to 5 percent of cases per generation. I would think that over a period of 10 generations, it could be a significant factor.)
We anticipate that DNA test results will supplement traditional family history research and relate to it to define various branches of the family or families, and to help individuals find where they fit in the family tree. At the present time (February, 2006), seven DNA analyses have provided us with at least five distinct family lines with the surnames COURTRIGHT, CURTRIGHT and LOWE. Click on "Results" for more detail.
If you expect to participate in any DNA surname project, you should be aware that you might be surprised by the results. Regardless of the apparent quality of the paper trail used to develop a family tree, there is always the possibility of a "non-parental event" buried in your data. Given the younger deaths due to childbirth, diseases, dangers in the workplace, and warfare, there was a greater tendency in the earlier years for orphaned children to be dispersed among relatives. Whether formally or informally adopted such children often adopted the surname of the household in which they were raised. Of course, there is also the possibility of a child resulting from an extra-marital affair of which the husband was unware, or accepted. In any event, the result might be that the person being tested does not match others of what appears on paper to be a single line of descent and the "non-paternal event might have occurred 200 - 300 years ago. (I have read somewhere that a non-parental event might occur in 2 to 5 percent of cases per generation. I would think that over a period of 10 generations, it could be a significant factor.)