The Vance Family Association (VFA) has been collecting and sharing literary, historical, and genealogical records and pictures relating to the Vance families since 1984 and is open to anyone with ancestors who carried the Vance surname no matter where it originated. Welcome to our online "portal" for Vance history.
We invite you to explore this site and connect with the history of the Vances. Hopefully you will find items of interest and perhaps even connect with other researchers who can help with your own family history.
There's a lot to find - the Vance name comes from two known origins (and maybe more) and our history includes castles and kings, barons and monks, governors and (alleged) murderers, with family legends sometimes nearly a thousand years old that stretch back to saints and to Magi Kings.
As you will find on our website, we publish a quarterly newsletter with articles, records, and queries of interest to Vance researchers. So why have a blog as well? Because the speed of research and collaboration today over the Internet has eclipsed any genealogical society's ability to inform their members through printed material alone. The newsletters are important to preserve our work and pass on our heritage to future generations and they will continue to include the detailed pedigrees and in-depth articles of interest to Vance families. But they can't be our only means of sharing Vance history or connecting with Vance researchers. We want this online site to be interactive - so please share your comments and feedback about the site and items of interest to you.
We also hope that the combination of online and printed collaboration options will help connect online Vance researchers with those who are still pursuing traditional genealogy research (yes, some of us still do it with a library card and letter-writing!).
As you make progress in your search, we invite you also to consider membership in the VFA. You can read more about the benefits of membership here, but basically there are three reasons to join - to further your own research, to connect more closely with other people researching the Vances and to support the efforts of the Association. We have been connecting Vances for nearly 30 years, and with your help we plan to continue for many more.
Best wishes for your own family research and thank you for visiting our blog.
Hey Dave, Marlyn sent me to your blog. Im kinson vance ggg granddaughter. I have done my dna and will get that to you. Im do thankful for marlyn.
ReplyDeleteHi Dave, do you have any info on John English Vance 1798-1855? I think his father was John but can’t find anything before that. My grandfather was Mahlon Smith Vance and his father was Mahlon Thomas. Thank you, A.O.
ReplyDeleteHi - the VFA has John English Vance as the son of John Vance (1767-1839) and Mary English (1769-1830). This Vance line goes back to a James Vance (1710-1752) who married Rachel Primrose (d. 1752). James and Rachel lived in Augusta, VA.
DeleteBased on other descendants of James and Rachel we know that James was part of the Vance group we call Group 2b in the Vance DNA project. This was a large group of Irish Vances who all descend from a Vance (or some variant of the name) who lived around 1500AD. We still don’t know much about the early origins of this group, but Group 2b is an early split from the rest of the group (known as 2a). Between Groups 2a and 2b there are probably 8-10 early Vance immigrants from Ireland who came to North America between the mid-1700s and late 1800s, including James.