The first records of the family come with Walter Tirel III who is suspected of killing King William the II of England.
The immigrant ancestor of the American branch was Richmond Terrell, who settled in New Kent County, Virginia from England in 1656.
There were 33,914 individuals recorded at that time using the surname Terrell, and of these, 57.43% identified as being white, 38.31% black, 0.27% Asian and Pacific Islander, 0.77% American Indian and Native Alaskan, 1.47% as Hispanic ethnic origin and 1.75% of more than one race.
Gary Boyd Roberts in his authoritative volume, Ancestors of American Presidents, covers only nine generations of Carter's ancestry (going back to Joel Terrell, William's son) and ten generations for Obama (going back to Hannah Lewis, William's granddaughter), so the issue is not addressed in their respective ahnentafel charts.
[3] In Reitwiesner's ancestry chart of Obama, despite covering sixteen generations, it does not list any ancestors for William Terrell.