The Vance Monument at Coagh, Northern Ireland

I was fortunate enough a couple of weeks ago to take a short trip to Ireland (for a genetic genealogy conference, as it happens). While I was there I took a couple of opportunities for research on the Irish Vances. One of those was to visit the John Vance of Coagh Monument in Northern Ireland (UK).

St. Luke’s Church, Tamlaght Parish, Co. Derry (Google Earth coordinates 54.6513256, -6.6237262) overlooks the town of Coagh in Co. Tyrone. There is a curious monument in its cemetery erected in 1854 which is a memorial both to John Vance of Coagh (1742-1799) and to William and Robert Balbirnie from the mid-1800s who helped popularize the traditional origin story of the Irish Vances.

The Vance Monument as seen from the road (picture credit:  Google Street Maps)

This is actually a well-known monument which has been amply covered in the pages of the Vance Family Association newsletters since at least 1989. I’ll just cover its history briefly here.

John Vance of Coagh was an actual person who was one of the first of a group of Vances who lived up and down the area just west of Lough Neagh since the mid-1600s. He was the great-grandfather of US President Andrew Jackson but on a separate line he was also the grandfather of William Balbirnie who wrote the influential book in 1860 on the Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan and the Irish Vances. If you recall the history of that book, William undertook his Vance research during the early 1850s at the request (and using the funds) of his elder brother Robert Anstruther Balbirnie, who had moved to Australia. They were honoring their mother, Margaret Vance, who was John Vance of Coagh’s daughter.

William reported most of his findings to his brother in the mid 1850’s before the book was published, because in 1854 on a return trip to England Robert Balbirnie legally changed his last name to “Balbirnie-Vans” and paid for the large monument to be erected on his grandfather’s grave at St. Luke’s Church with the entire story that William “uncovered” written out. Unfortunately, Robert passed away in August of 1855 just after he returned to Melbourne and didn’t live to see William’s book in print.

The monument, then, is a summary of the ancestry of the Vances in Ireland the way William saw it – that all Irish Vances were descended from the Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan who had a son Lancelot who died at the Siege of Derry, and the Rev. Vans in turn was an offshoot of the Vans family of Barnbarroch who were themselves descended from the Vaus of Dirleton and by extension the de Baux family of southern France. While the story has always been romantic, I’ll just say here that major portions have been called into question in the years since William’s book, not the least of which are the existence of Lancelot Vance and the ancestry of all Irish Vances back to the Rev. Vans. However, those are subjects for other articles.

The monument has faded and broken significantly even since the first VFA photographs were taken of it in the 1980s. It is now propped up with iron supports and in sore need of repair. But the inscription has been known for decades and while faded is still mostly readable. I have transcribed the full inscription below.

We don’t know if Robert ever saw the finished monument but even allowing for variable spelling, the engraver made some mistakes including the spelling of Robert’s middle name. In parentheses below I have added some editorial corrections to hopefully make the meaning clearer.

The inscription with original spelling and capitalization is as follows (only the items in parentheses have been added):

In Memory of the late JOHN VANCE Esqr of COAGH Born 1742 Deceased 1799

Eldest Son of Jas (James) Vance Esqr who was 2nd Son of JOHN VANCE Esqr whose Father was JOHN VANCE the ELDER who first obtained a Lease of the Lands of COAGH. He was the Eldest Son of Dr. Lanncelot Vance Surgeon and afterwards Colonel of the Coleraine Regiment who died from excessive fatigue within the walls of DERRY during the Memorable Siege thereoff in 1689 and whose Father was the Reverend (John)
VANS who fled from the South of SCOTLAND to IRELAND during the religious persecutions there about the middle of the 17th Century and was a Cadet of the ancient and Distinguished Family of Vans or Van of Barnbarragh (Barnbarroch) in Wigton Shire a Younger branch of that of the Lords (of) Dirleton in East Loashean (Lothian) who were Decended of the VAN who accompanied to ENGLAND from FRANCE William the Conquorer of Normandy where they were Lords of province (Provence) and Normandy and Sovereigne Counts of Orange and Dukes of Andre (Andrea) holding a distinguished part in European History before the advent of Charlemagne.

ERECTED By

Robert Anstrusher (Anstruther) Balbirnie Vans Esqr Grandson to the first Named JOHN VANCE.

Vances of the Past: The epitaph of Roland de Vaux of Triermain

The study of gravestone epitaphs is a fascinating offshoot of genealogy, and many of our ancestors have left us some humorous or reflective evidence of their personality in a quiet cemetery.   Rodney Dangerfield is said to have used the line "There goes the neighborhood" on his tombstone, and W.C. Fields himself started the urban legend that his tombstone would read "I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia".  Whole books have been written about these and other famous last words passed on by our famous and not-so-famous ancestors.

If you subscribe to the origin story of the Vance surname with the de Vaux families of England and Scotland, then one of our far-away relatives left us one of those messages which is still remembered after more than six hundred years.

While the exact story differs in the histories, it seems that when Hubert de Vaux was granted the barony of Gilsland (in Cumberland near the English border with Scotland) in 1158, he re-gifted the smaller holdings of Triermain and Torcrossock to his second son Ranulf, who in turn passed Triermain on to his own son Roland.  The histories then record of Triermain that "Roland had issue Alexander and he Ranulf after whom succeeded Robert and then they were named Rolands successively that were Lords thereof until" the mid-fifteenth century,

One wall is all that remains today of Triermain Castle
(source:  Peter McDermott, Wikimedia)

The priory of Lanercost which sits about 5 miles from Triermain Castle was founded by Hubert de Vaux's eldest son Robert and for centuries the de Vaux remained important benefactors of the priory.  In the north transept, the oldest tomb of the priory is one of the Roland de Vaux lords from the fourteenth century.  Unfortunately the knight's effigy and tomb decorations are mostly now gone, but an 18th century writer recorded the tomb's details including the following epitaph:

Which translated into modern English becomes:

Sir Roland de Vaux who was once the Lord of Triermain, 

Is dead, his body clothed in lead, and lies low under this stone.  

Even as we are now so was he on earth a living man;

Even as he is now so will we become, for all the craft we can
(i.e. no matter how hard we try).  

Not quite the wit of a Rodney Dangerfield or a W.C. Fields, perhaps, but this reflective message has outlasted the de Vaux nobility of England and Scotland, most of their castles, and even nearly the tomb itself that it was written on.

Several books mention that while the inscription is gone from the tomb itself, it survives in a plaque that was mounted on the wall of the north transept near the tomb at Lanercost Priory.  If anyone visits the priory and can find the plaque, if you can send me a picture (Gmail id davevance01) I'll post it here with my thanks!

Lanercost Priory today
(source:  Peter McDermott, Wikimedia)

Reviving our Ancestors

This is not a blog about my personal Vance genealogy, but I recently tried a nice trick I read about reviving old pictures and I thought I'd share it.

A few years ago I had the luck of meeting a far-off cousin a bazillion times removed who was also researching our common Vance ancestors.   I had dates, wills, and other records to share, but she had something even more exciting - an album of pictures going back to my 3rd-great-grandparents!  Suddenly I had faces for many of the people that I had thought would always be just names on my family tree.  I felt like I had stumbled on to pirate gold.

Photography didn't start becoming widely available in the US until the 1840s, and even then the early daguerreotype and other methods often produced washed-out, blurry black or sepia-toned images that haven't held up well after over 150 years.  Many of the pictures in my exciting new album fit that description, like one of my favorites here of my 3rd-great-grandfather, John Vance:

John Vance (1786-1869)

John Vance was born in county Donegal, Ireland, in 1786 and emigrated at 18 with his parents to Pennsylvania where he became a farmer until his death in 1869.  This picture was undated, but appears to be from around 1860-65 when he was in his 70s.  The picture is actually in pretty good shape, although it's faded and his features and hair are difficult to make out.  But it's still one of my favorite pictures especially because this is my earliest Vance photograph.

Recently someone shared on Facebook a list of famous black-and-white photographs that had been colorized, and I realized the power of using color to bring out detail in old pictures.  Many people have realized that before me, of course, but I started playing with a scanned copy of this favorite picture of mine.

Meet the same John Vance again after some amateur cosmetic computer retouching:

John Vance with added color

I will always like the original, of course, because I completely understand the purists who would say it's the "truest" reflection of the times that John Vance lived in.  And the colorized version isn't perfect, but I think it adds a new dimension - it really brings his portrait "to life", even though I had to guess at some of the colors.

You need a serious graphics package like Photoshop or GIMP to colorize an old picture yourself, but honestly there are many professional photographers or photo restoration websites that could do a much better job than I did with this one.  I just might check out a few.  

So, if you have old black-and-white pictures of your ancestors too, you might consider getting them colorized.  To me it feels like now I have two pictures of my 3rd-great-grandfather where I used to have only one.   And it almost feels like I'm meeting John Vance again for the first time.

Now if I could just get him to share some stories...

The Oldest Vances

Detail from Blaeu's 1645 map of the Luxembourg area, showing the town of Vance and its bridge over the Semois River

In the hills of the Ardennes in southern Belgium not far from where the Battle of the Bulge was fought in World War II the small village of Vance sits in a quiet spot on the Semois River away from major roadways and tourists.    The village dates back to Roman times and depending on sources it was first called Veen or Wannen but for nearly a thousand years now its name has been spelled Vance.   It is the oldest use of the Vance name that has been uncovered so far.

In the 10th century after the death of Charlemagne the local area was split up into counties with Vance falling into the newly-formed county of Chiny.  A fief system developed with knights ruling villages and their surrounding regions, subject to the local Counts.  One knight became the Seigneur (Lord) of Vance and following local tradition from that point forward his sons and grandsons adopted the last name "de Vance". 

The Lords of Vance flourished in the 1200's and 1300's.  It was the age of the Crusades, when chivalrous knights would feast, joust, and fight endless battles in the service of their local rulers.  Surviving records show that the de Vance knights were well-respected both in peace and in war, and educated enough to keep an enviable library.   Two castles were built in Vance over the centuries, but no trace now remains of either.

Seal of the Count of Chiny

The county of Chiny was eventually absorbed into Luxembourg in 1364 and soon afterwards the lordship of Vance passed through marriage to men of other names.  But the surname "de Vance" continued down other family lines until the last local person of that name was recorded in 1667.  It is believed that the surname died out after that.  

Although these Vances might be ancestors of any of us, it's unlikely that we got our surname from them.  But long before the Irish Vances or German Vances adopted that exact spelling of the name, one European family carried it with respect and honor.  And the village of Vance survived them all and still sits there today.

The village of Vance in Belgium today

Infamous and Violent Vances

I recently came across a reference to the 1827 Carson-Vance duel in western North Carolina (see below) and it got me wondering how many Vances in history became infamous through violence.

All of the Vances that I'm aware of who famously met their end through violence are, for some reason, in the U.S. (does that mean something?).   Most of us of course are familiar with James "Jim" Vance and his role on the Hatfield side of the Hatfield and McCoy feud along the West Virginia/Kentucky border in the late 1800s.  But did you know his grandfather was also an infamous Vance?  Here are the ones I know of in chronological order:

Abner Vance (c. 1760 - 1819)

Abner Vance's story has become a legend of the American frontier.  He lived on the Big Sandy River in Russell County, VA, where in 1817 he was arrested and indicted for the murder of Lewis Horton  (the "usual" folk story says his daughter Elizabeth ran off with one of the local Horton boys, but the court records don't mention that at all).   Abner was convicted of murder in his first trial, but won the right to a change of venue and a second trial.  Unfortunately he was also convicted in the second trial and was finally hanged in July 1819 in Abingdon, VA.

During his long imprisonment Abner composed "Vance's Song", a folk ballad about his plight still considered the oldest known song composed west of the Blue Ridge mountains.  More about Abner's life and trial is available on the Internet, for instance here and here.

Abner's daughter Elizabeth never married but went on to have at least two sons and a daughter.  One of her sons was Jim Vance of Hatfield and McCoy fame.

A lot of research on Jim and Abner has been compiled by Barbara Vance Cherep and the court documents and other records she has collected present a very different picture of their lives than the violent men often shown in popular culture (or recent TV shows)!

A personal note:  DNA testing has shown that these Vances are related to me, but our common ancestor is before the 1750's somewhere back in Ireland!

Robert Brank Vance (1793 - 1827)

Robert Brank Vance was NC Gov. Zebulon Baird Vance's uncle and a successful politician in his own right who served as a U.S. Congressman for North Carolina in the 1820s.   While campaigning for re-election in 1826, he exchanged insults with his (eventually successful) opponent Samuel Price Carson.  The exchange grew so rancorous that Carson finally challenged Vance to a duel, which was held on Nov. 5, 1827 at Saluda Gap (apparently across the state line into South Carolina because dueling was illegal in North Carolina at that time).  While both men were considered good marksmen, Carson had better aim that day, and Vance died from his wounds the next day.  

Because of the prominence of the two men the duel attracted much attention.  It is said (although I have not verified it) that Davy Crockett was one of those present at the duel.

More information on Robert Brank Vance can be found at Wikipedia or here (starting on p. 359).

Zebulon Baird Vance (1830 - 1894)

Zeb Vance was the Confederate Governor of North Carolina and is still arguably the most well-known American Vance in history.   While he did not meet his end in violence, he DID come close - in 1855 he criticized his cousin James Baird enough so that Baird issued a challenge to a duel.  Vance accepted, but relatives stepped in at the last moment and stopped it.  Then in 1859 just like his uncle before him, Vance and his campaign opponent David Coleman traded insults until they exchanged formal letters and agreed to a duel.  This time it was friends of both men who intervened and prevented the tragedy.

James "Jim" Vance (1832 - 1888)

A note:  I have avoided calling him "Crazy Jim" or "Bad Jim" because there is considerable debate over whether those nicknames were ever applied to him during his lifetime.  Surviving records (compiled by Barbara Vance Cherep as mentioned above) present a picture of Jim Vance as a law-abiding and respected land-owner; very different from the "usual" portrayal of Jim Vance.

The Hatfield and McCoy feud story has filled many books and I won't go into all that history here.  Jim Vance was the brother of Nancy Hatfield and both were children of Elizabeth Vance, and while their father was never documented, it has recently been shown through DNA testing that the father of their brother Richard Vance was John Ferrell.    As to the feud, although the role that Jim Vance played is still debated, there is no doubt that the McCoys saw him as an active player.  In 1888, Frank Philips (a McCoy partisan) led a party of men from Pike County, KY across the border to Vance's home in Logan County, WV where they first wounded and then killed Jim Vance.  The feud itself would go on for another three years and the resulting trials lasted another decade after that.


Does anyone know of other infamous Vances?

An Older Case

The legendary ancestors of the Irish and Scottish Vances, the de Vaux family of England and Scotland, have more than one case of infamous ancestors who may be in our family trees.  One example is Robert de Vaux of Cumberland in northern England, who lived in the 12th century.  The de Vaux family had been granted the barony of Cumberland by King Henry II in 1158, but were struggling to hold on to it because it was still full of Scots who thought it belonged to them.   According to the story, Robert de Vaux invited the Scottish chieftain, Gille Bueth, to his home for a reconciliation, but then treacherously ambushed and killed him.  That story was repeated for centuries, but has more recently been dismissed by later historians.

Whether true or not, the story of the murder has long captured local attention.   A late as the 19th century Robert de Vaux was the subject of a fictitious ballad called "The Bridal O'Naworth" where, after the murder, the ghost of Bueth appears to him on his wedding day and frightens him so much that he founds the priory of Lanercost on the spot in remorse!

I know every family tree has its nuts and bad apples, but the Vances (in stories, at least) certainly have their share of infamous ancestors!

The Bewcastle Cross - a Vaux/Vance Legend

In a little churchyard in Bewcastle in Cumberland, England, there stands one of the largest Anglo-Saxon high crosses in the British Isles.  Its connection to Vaux/Vance history has been debated for centuries, but the story of the debate still merits a place in the legends of our family surname.

The Bewcastle Cross
(picture source:  Wikimedia)

High crosses are Christian crosses intricately carved out of stone in the early medieval period as the Anglo-Saxon and Norse communities across England, Scotland and Ireland were being converted to Christianity.   Some crosses were erected at churches and monasteries, others at major cross-roads or meeting-places.  Many still stand, but Bewcastle has one of the largest and best studied.

The Bewcastle Cross is missing its head (often high crosses were topped by a Celtic cross) so only the shaft remains, standing 14 ½ feet tall in its original location.  While the rich detail of the carvings remain clear, the inscriptions are worn by time and weather and the age and origins of the Cross have been fiercely debated for centuries.

The earliest mention of the Bewcastle Cross in print is in 1607 by a man named Nicholas Roscarrock who was writing to the British historian William Camden.  Earlier editions of Camden’s works had not mentioned the Cross, and Roscarrock said (in updated English)  “If you have any occasion to speak of the Cross of Bewcastle, I have assured myself that the inscription on one side is Hubert de Vaux; [and] that the chequy coat of arms is above that on the same side.”

Arms of the de Vaux
barons of Gilsland

Hubert de Vaux had been granted the Barony of Gilsland (in northern Cumberland) by King Henry II in 1158.  This de Vaux family (see A Short History of the Vance Surname) is thought to be one origin of the Irish Vances.   And the original coat of arms of the de Vaux was a check pattern (“chequy”, in heraldic terms) of either gold and red or silver and red (see What is the Vance Coat of Arms?).

Camden may have investigated further, for his next editions include the passage “In the church-yard is a cross…neatly wrought, and having an inscription, but the letters too much consumed by time to be legible.  But the cross itself being chequered like the arms of the family of Vaux makes it probable that it was their work”.

So for the next century or two the de Vaux barons of Gilsland were given credit for erecting the Bewcastle Cross.

Much of the Cross’s carvings are clear – there is a figure of John the Baptist, holding the Lamb of God and walking on the desert hills.  Below him is Christ himself as King and law-giver, and a third figure is thought to be St. John the Evangelist.   There is a sundial on its surface that has been called “by far the earliest English sundial to survive”, divided into the four “tides” which governed the working day in medieval times.  But with their faded lettering, the inscriptions have been reinterpreted many times.

Four Sides of the Cross
(note check pattern on far left)
(picture source:  Gentleman's Magazine
ca. 1790)

Later examinations of the Cross from 1685 through 1794 concluded the inscriptions were Saxon runes which suggested that the Cross was much older than the 12th century.    Those scholars also noted the possible connection between the checkered Cross and the de Vaux coat of arms, but they stopped short of drawing any definite conclusions.  Then in the early 1800s an antiquary named Henry Howard reversed the theory and suggested that the de Vaux had themselves adopted the chequy pattern for their arms in honor of the Bewcastle Cross.   But no other evidence was found to support this.

The de Vaux association was further weakened in studies in the 1850s by John Maughan, the rector of Bewcastle, who noted that checkered patterns were common in medieval illuminated texts and artwork as far back as Egyptian, Gallic, and Roman cultures.

Maughan also had a fierce academic rivalry with a scholar named Daniel Henry Haigh over the Bewcastle Cross and through the 1850s they both published several conflicting interpretations of the cross’s inscriptions and origins.  By this time the de Vaux connection with the cross was dismissed by both as unlikely.  Maughan in particular became somewhat obsessed with his subject and apparently around 1856 even painted his interpretation of the runic letters directly on the Cross!   When he was censured by the Society of Antiquaries for this act of graffiti, Maughan indignantly fired back that he was only trying to make the letters clearer, not deface them, and that he could not even “conceive how such a puerile idea can have found a lodgment in the cranium of the antiquated patriarchs of such a renowned Society.”

The current prevailing theory is that the Cross is from the late 7th or early 8th century and possibly commemorates King Alchfrith of Deira, who around 664 made an unsuccessful bid for control of the entire area, and his wife Cyneburh.  It is speculated that Alchfrith lived in exile after 664, died in Bewcastle (his mother was a local princess) and that the memorial was organized by his half-sister Abbess Aelfflaed of Witby (d. 714).  Others though look to a slightly later date in the reign of King Eadberht (737-758).

Could the shaft’s design be the origin of the de Vaux coat of arms, as Henry Howard proposed?  Possible, but doubtful.   Firstly, there is no reason that a Saxon cross would be important to the Normans or any evidence that it was.  Hubert de Vaux’s seat of power in Gilsland was over 10 miles away at  Castlesteads near Irthington, and there is no sign that he paid much attention to Bewcastle.  Secondly, in 1158 there were already other English de Vaux knights as far away as Norfolk and while heraldry was only just being formalized, all the de Vaux nobility adopted some variation of the chequy pattern.  That certainly argues that they were a common family and while Hubert as baron of Gilsland was an important de Vaux family member, the idea that he convinced them all to adopt a pattern from a remote part of his barony suggests an unlikely level of coordination for the Middle Ages.   It is still possible, but the more likely conclusion is that the de Vaux family had already settled on a common pattern before Hubert moved to Gilsland.

The Cross still stands in its churchyard today, drawing tourists and scholars alike.  The controversy over its origins has settled down but is by no means settled.  Its association with the Norman de Vaux may be in doubt, but if you get a chance to visit Bewcastle, you can stand as people have done for hundreds of years and draw your own conclusions.  Just don’t draw them with paint.  

Sources:

Bewcastle Cross, Wikipedia (website), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bewcastle_Cross

Bewcastle (website), http://www.bewcastle.com/cross.htm

Guides to the Lakes (website), http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/lakemenu.htm

Cook, Albert Stanburrough.  Some Accounts of the Bewcastle Cross between the years 1607 and 1861.   New York, Henry Holt & Co, 1914.    Google eBook at http://books.google.com/books?id=7KhAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Stone, J.M.  The Runic Crosses of Northumbria. Studies of Court and Cloister.  Edinburgh, Sands & Co, 1905.   Google eBook at http://books.google.com/books?id=tEYJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=stone+runic+crosses+northumbria&source=bl&ots=GaDI9OBrON&sig=AoaGLBtOiO_JU6G7WurkxjtsZ4M&hl=en&ei=x7ZKToD6EKGtsAKCq7nlCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false