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.

One or Two Early Mentions of Irish Vances

Time for another reach into U,K. and Irish history for a look at our (possible) past ancestors!

As many of you are aware, the main goal of William Balbirnie's book in 1860 about Irish Vances was to connect all the Vances then living in Ireland to the Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan, whom Balbirnie believed was their common ancestor.  In clinging to that focus, Balbirnie ignored or discounted other Vans/Vance immigrants that he knew about like George Vance who came to Ireland around 1662 (see our post about George Vance).

But researchers since Balbirnie have also uncovered other early Vances (and variants of the name) mentioned in Irish records that William Balbirnie never knew about.  Two from even before the Rev. John Vans, for instance are mentioned in what is known as the Tudor Fiants.

The Fiants were writs issued in early modern Ireland by the chief governor to the Court of Chancery mandating the issue of letters patent - basically government commands regarding appointments, pardons, grants, and the like.  The most complete of these that were indexed date from the time of the Tudor royal dynasty - or basically from the very late 1400s into the first decade of the 1600s.

In these compiled records there are two mentions of very early men who may have been ancestors of today's Vances.  The first in 1576 is a grant of land to a John Vause in what is now Meelick village on the River Shannon in Co. Galway:

From "Reports 11-13 of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland / presented to both houses of the Parliament by command of Her Majesty" published in 1879 (Archive.org)

The second from 1586 concerns a Hasting Vanse, gentleman, being granted wardship and lands in Cork in the south of Ireland:

From "The Fourteeth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland / presented to both houses of the Parliament by command of Her Majesty" published in 1879 (Archive.org)

The pity is that these men do not appear in any of the other fragmentary records from Ireland of that period, so if they DID settle permanently in Ireland and leave descendants it was not recorded for posterity (that we yet know of).   Were these men connected with the known Vans lines from Scotland?  We don't know.

What we DO know at least is that the Vaus/Vans/Vance name (or variants of it) were living in Ireland at least a generation or two before the Rev. John Vans.  Since we know he came over from Scotland to start his ministry (with no known or obvious immediate relations in Ireland), it is likely that these or some of the other known early Vance immigrants to Ireland were different families.  And while we don't know yet which ancestor(s) started which of the 4 or 5 known DNA lines of Irish Vances, we certainly know that there were enough separate immigrants to explain how they came about.

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)

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!

Vances of the Past: The Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan

Today's blog post is a musty dive into old books, so I thought I'd start with a fun fact:  did you know that on Ancestry.com there are 38,948 public family trees that include the Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan?  The man is probably more widely known as an ancestor than he ever was in real life! (And if YOU don't know who the Rev. John Vans is, read the Irish origins of "Vance" in our Short History of the Vance Surname)

The story goes that a Protestant clergyman named John Vans (variously spelled Vauss, Vaux, Vaus, and Vanse in old records when spelling was variable) who was somehow connected to the Vans of Barnbarroch in Scotland came to minister in Kilmacrenan in Ireland in the early 1600s, and is credited with being the original ancestor in Ireland of a whole modern group of Vances.  But what do we really know about the man?

William Balbirnie certainly didn't do us any favors in his Vance book from 1860 when he speculated freely about the Rev. John Vans and his offspring.  By now there is a ton of confusing information about him out there - many trees have him born in 1617, or married to an Elizabeth Shaw, or show his exact father and mother from the Vans of Barnbarroch in Scotland, or other details that are really all just speculation.

There actually IS a surprising amount of historical evidence about the Rev. John Vans.  For those of you who may want to add evidence to your records, here is a list of recorded facts:

1.  Rev. John Vans graduated with a B.A. from St. John's College in Cambridge in 1605 (his birthdate is not recorded, but presumably he was therefore born about 1585-1590).  He received a Master of Arts (where is not recorded) and was ordained as Church of Ireland deacon and priest in Kilmacrenan on Feb 7, 1613.  He also became rector of Movagh in 1615.   The reason that we know all this is that he was remembered in a history of Church of Ireland clergy in Raphoe, which also references his graduation from Cambridge, and the graduate rolls of Cambridge do show a John Vaux graduating that year.

2.  This part is speculation because the Raphoe Clergy book above doesn't list where "our" John Vans received his Masters of Arts, but the graduate rolls for the University of Edinburgh record a "Joannes Vaus" graduating with a Masters of Arts on July 27, 1611, which would certainly fit the timeframe for the Rev. John Vans of Kilmacrenan.  Is this the same man?  It fits, but we don't know for sure.

3.  In order to own land in Ireland at that time, non-Irish citizens had to be granted "denization", and the record of "John Vanse" being granted denization in Kilmacrenan on Nov 28, 1617 still exists in the Irish Patent Rolls ("clerk" at the time meant "cleric" or local religious figure).   Note:  not related to Rev. John Vans, but on this same page (Scots-Irish Links, Vol. 3, page 195) is a record of "Patrick Vans, of Libragh,  second son of Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch...was granted Irish denization on 11 Aug 1610..."

4.  Abstracts of destroyed records from the 1922 fire in Dublin have survived, some of which were made by St John D. Seymour and entitled "Notes relating to the Ministers of the Gospel appointed by the Commonwealth Government to minister throughout Ireland".  This includes an entry from Sept 5, 1660:

Petition of John Vance.  Referred to Solicitor General.  There was produced a document dated 17 May 1615, whereby Andrew, late Bishop of Raphoe, conferred upon him Kilmacrenan and Movagh.  Another document was produced, dated 25 May 1615, ordering Thomas Bressy, clerk, to induct him.  Ordered to enjoy the livings.

Note:  Many Irish clergymen left their parishes during the Commonwealth period of 1650-1660 for religious reasons; this may be a sign that the Rev. John Vans did as well and was petitioning to be reinstated.

5.  There is an odd mention in the 1654 Civil Survey of Donegal, which recorded landowners from 1640 and was compiled between 1655 and 1667.  In that survey, the "clerk"/cleric of Kilmacrenan is recorded as "William Vans".  The Rev. John Vans is known to have had a son William mentioned in his will.  Did the Civil Survey mis-record the cleric's first name, or was Rev. John Vans' son perhaps administering his lands while his father had left his position during the Commonwealth years?   We don't know.

6.  Of course, we also have William Balbirnie's book from 1860, who references the Rev. John Vans' will from 1661.  That will was part of the Prerogative Wills which burned in the fire in Dublin in 1922.  However, another set of abstracts of the prerogative wills made by Sir William Betham in 1810, has survived and Rev. John Vans' will is also referenced in Betham's Abstracts - including a picture of the coat of arms that Balbirnie says sealed the will in red wax!!

It turns out we actually know a lot about this 400-year-old clergyman.  What don't we know?  Well,  we don't really know his parents or where he came from.  William Balbirnie makes a convincing case that he WAS connected to the Vans of Barnbarroch (although probably not the eldest son and heir as Balbirnie suggests), based in large part on the coat of arms sealing the will.  However, the arms as drawn by Betham above are actually closer to another related family, the Vaus/Vans of Menie, who died out in the 17th century but were related to the Vans of Barnbarroch (this theory was first advanced by Jamie Vans and is very possible).

We also don't really know the Rev. John Vans' wife's name or whether he really had all the children attributed to him by William Balbirnie.  And no one (to my knowledge) has really shown their ancestry back to him.  But we DO have a large group of Vances today who through DNA have proven that they share the same ancestry as the Vans of Barnbarroch (whether directly or through the Vaus/Vans of Menie).  So that large group of Vances certainly shares a common ancestor, and it could be the Rev. John Vans.

In the meantime, the story of the Rev. John Vans continues to spread today.  I know of at least 38,948 people who have heard it.  Some people hear it through older researchers in their families, others discover it on their own.  Had you heard it before?  How was the story told to you?

Another Vance of the Past: Gilbert Vance, fl.1630-1641

Was a man named Gilbert Vance in counties Cavan and Fermanagh one of the first Scottish Vance immigrants into Ireland?

In the early 1600s the British started a massive immigration program of Scottish and other Protestant settlers into the north of Ireland in what would become known as the Plantation of Ulster.  The large Protestant landlords were required to keep the names of the able-bodied settlers that they could assemble to fight if the need arose, and these "Muster Rolls" have survived for 1630.

In that year Sir Francis Hamilton, a Scottish knight and baronet, listed Gilbert Vance among his men in the Barony of Tulknock (Tullyhunco) in County Cavan, near its border with County Fermanagh.  While the men on these lists were mostly of Scottish origins, nothing is really known of Gilbert's background except that his "sword and musket" were available to fight in the Protestant cause.  

Ireland's counties, showing Fermanagh (now in Northern Ireland)
and Cavan (now in the Republic of Ireland)

Then in 1641 the local Catholic populations rebelled and a short bloody uprising followed.  Sir Francis Hamilton and his men were forced to flee, and only regained their barony in the 1660s.  

In the years after 1641, the British government collected witness testimonies from (mainly Protestant) locals documenting the loss of goods and alleged crimes committed by the rebels.  These "1641 Depositions" have also survived and have recently been digitized by Trinity College in Dublin and are available on their website here.  

A Gilbert Vance is mentioned in two separate depositions describing the same event in 1641.  While there is no proof that it is the same Gilbert Vance as the one from the 1630 Muster Rolls, the events described in the depositions took place in County Fermanagh less than 30 miles from the Barony of Tullyhunco, and it is certainly likely that an able-bodied Protestant man of arms would have been a focus for the rebels' rage.  

The deposition of Thomas Wenslowe was given in January of 1644, and he tells that in 1641,

one Rory MacBrign McShane Maguire of Ramone in the County of Fermanagh...& his souldjers about the begining of December 1641 at a place nere Cordiller in the same County slew & wickedly murthered by hanging them to death one Gilbert Vance of Portoran (gentleman) a Scotchman: Michell Belfore of the same (gentleman) another Scotchman Edward mc Bright of the same (gentleman).

"Portoran" (now Portora) is very near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, not far from the border with Cavan. If it is the same Gilbert, maybe he moved north between 1630 and 1641, or did he perhaps escape to Enniskillen when the fighting started, only to fall victim to it there?    

Gilbert Vance's name in one of the 1641 Depositions
(certainly not easy to decipher, but all of the transcriptions are consistent!)

Another deposition, that of George Adwick in August of 1643, recalls only that

about January next after the Rebellion there was hanged at the Lord Magwires bridge in Fermanagh one John Fairbour & his 3 sonns and their wyves & children And about the same tyme there was hanged one Gilbert Vance & three more with him. And 220 Cowes were taken from them though they had and shewed Captain Rory Magwires protection which murthers & outrages were Committed by the Rebels.

These events were unfortunately not unusual, it is said that hundreds of settlers were hanged, drowned, and otherwise killed by the rebels in the uprising, and the event was used to justify brutal retaliations for years afterwards.  Gilbert's fate was sad, but certainly not unusual for the times.  

17th century books had fanciful illustrations of the horrors of the 1641 Rebellion.
How accurate the depositions were is anyone's guess,
but at least two mentioned Gilbert Vance.

No records of Gilbert's family have survived, so whether he left siblings or descendants is unknown.  But he would have been of the same generation as the Rev. John Vans/Vance who moved to Kilmacrenan and while both may have been Scottish, there is no indication that they were related.  

Is Gilbert possibly another separate Vance immigrant from Scotland to Ireland, who started a line of Vance men from one of the other Irish DNA lines besides Group 1 (R1b-L21/L193+)?  

We may never know for sure, but we can't discount the possibility.

Vances of the Past: Ezekiel Vance (Part 2)

Another installment in the soldier life of Ezekiel Vance!  Check Vances of the Past: Ezekiel Vance (Part 1) for the first story and the source of these reports.  

Again, this was during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, when Irishmen fought on both the rebel and the British sides of the conflict.  Ezekiel Vance was a young Irish soldier on the Loyalist (British) side who distinguished himself in the Battle of Antrim.  After the battle, however, he seems to have caused some trouble...

On an early day after the battle [of Antrim], twenty-two men were arrested at the insistence of Lord Massereene, colonel of the local cavalry force.  His Lordship is said to have been a somewhat eccentric man, who sometimes gave orders without fully considering their gravity.  The only offense the twenty-two men were known to have committed was that of not making any demonstration on the side of loyalty.  They had simply remained neutral.  For this they were arrested, and committed to one of the cells still existing beneath the western end of the Court-house. 

After the men were imprisoned, the question arose in Lord Massareene’s mind as to what should be done with them.  This was soon decided.  They should be at once shot; that would end the difficulty.  Accordingly his Lordship requested Sergeant McCaughan to dispatch them in the manner indicated, to which McCaughan replied “Yes, my Lord, we will bring them out and shoot them.”  Ezekiel Vance, being present, opposed such an order, and at once exclaimed, “No, my Lord, that would be murder!”  Lord Massareene, realizing the truth of the remark, proceeded no further with the matter, but immediately walked away, and the lives of the men were spared.  McCaughan afterwards reproached Vance, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Yeoman [on the British side], with being always on the side of the Insurgents [the rebels]. 

The names of only four of the twenty-two men are now remembered – Silas and James Steen, and Richard and William Barklie.  While confined within their cells, the poor fellows heard the order given for them to be shot.  All subsequently manifested much gratitude to Ezekiel Vance for having remonstrated with Lord Massareene, whereby their lives were saved.

...His [Ezekiel Vance’s] subsequent life was uneventful, and was spent in peaceful occupations.  He enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his fellow-townsmen, and died universally respected when eighty-two years of age (Authority – Mrs. Graham Shannon, of Antrim, daughter of Ezekiel Vance).

In the years immediately after 1798 smaller rebel armies in Ireland continued to fight and it was not until 1803 that the last rebel forces surrendered.   Many stories of brutal retaliations and heavy-handed tactics survived on both sides after the conflict, and the continuing hostilities caused waves that obviously have lasted well into modern times. Ireland's history might have been more peaceful if there had been more Ezekiel Vances around in 1798!   

Vances of the Past: Ezekiel Vance (Part 1)

Ezekiel Vance and the Battle of Antrim, 1798

Every now and then I like to highlight the story of a past Vance who became famous (or notorious!), even though we may not know for certain whose ancestors they might be.  One example of this is a man named Ezekiel Vance, whose exploits were published in the Ulster Journal of Archeology in 1895 (Vol 1, pp 134-135).  

Vinegar Hill, Battle of Ballynahinch, Irish Rebellion of 1798
detail of painting by Thomas Robinson

The scene is Ireland in 1798, in the midst of the rebellion sparked by the United Irishmen against the British.  Like many conflicts in Ireland, Irishmen fought on both sides, especially in Ulster where many sided with the British.   

Ezekiel Vance was apparently born of a Quaker family and fought in the Battle of Antrim on the side of the Loyalists against the rebels.   Years later his daughter told his story to the Ulster Journal of Archaeology:

A name that is mentioned in connection with several striking incidents which occurred in connection with the Battle of Antrim is that of Ezekiel Vance… 

It was necessarily a trying time.  The streets were filled with smoke; bullets were flying in all directions; while men, whose faces were perfectly black through having to bite off the ends of their cartridges, rushed wildly hither and thither… Finding the Insurgents [rebels] were persistently pressing forward notwithstanding the determined efforts of the Yeomen [Loyalists] and dragoons to check their onward progress, and believing that the Military outside the town were under an impression that the Loyalists had been overpowered, an idea occurred to Vance as to the feasibility of making some sign from the top of the Castle that might be taken as an indication that an energetic movement on the part of the Military might yet succeed.  He left the wall, therefore, and hurried in the direction of the Castle, seizing as he went the cloak of a young woman named Abigail O’Neill, with the intention of carrying it to the roof and waving it to and fro there.

But Abigail did not relish the unceremonious interference with her garment, and so warmly remonstrated [argued]; when Ezekiel Vance bade her hold her tongue, for she would be in eternity in ten minutes – a remark that seemed probable of realization when made, and which reconciled the young woman to her loss.

He then rushed into the hall of the Castle, where he saw a man named Clarke lying wounded and writhing in agony, pleading for help.  Vance could, however, only bind up the injured part with a pocket-handkerchief, and then made his way to the roof, where, with the aid of a pike or longstaff, he waved the red cloak as a signal to the Military.

The incident appeared to be understood, and so he rushed from the Castle roof, noticed as he passed that the wounded man in the hall was dead, crossed the river, the water being low from drought, ran, still bearing aloft the cloak, met the Military, and conducted them into the town. 

It has been maintained by many that but for this feat, and the consequent arrival of the Military, the Insurgents would have secured possession of the town and would have held it for a time at least.  But after the arrival of Military aid the Insurgent ranks soon began to waver, then to break and fly – many being killed as they went – in all directions; through backyards and gardens and across the river; but not until upwards of 300 men lay dead or dying on the streets of Antrim.

Martial law still remaining in force after the battle, Ezekiel Vance had to take his turn with others at parade duty at the various entrances to the town, and also at the Castle, during which time the large room of the Market House served as guard-room, sleeping-room, and store-room combined (Authority – Mrs. Graham Shannon, of Antrim, daughter of Ezekiel Vance)

To hear his daughter tell it, Ezekiel was quite the brave soldier.  Another story of Ezekiel Vance in my next post!

Australian Vance Immigrants

I started looking at the Vance family lines that emigrated to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries, using the Public Family Trees on Ancestry.com.  While this is a completely non-scientific poll, a lot of current research tracks back to the same fifteen original immigrants. I'm sure these are not the only Vance immigrants into Australia, but they show up on the most number of well-researched and well-sourced public family trees.  So if you are researching a Vance family line in Australia, you may well find that the trail leads back to one of these immigrants - and know that you have a good shot at connecting with other genealogists who have followed these families before. 

One interesting common link between these fifteen immigrants is that they ALL came to Australia from Ireland or England, meaning the origin of these Vance families is very likely to be the same origin as the US Vances of Irish descent.  Have any Vances in Australia done Y-DNA testing?   

(Tip:  if you're going blind trying to read the table below, click on it to see a bigger version.  If that still isn't big enough, right-click on it and save it as a JPEG on your computer, then open it with your favorite picture viewer!).   

Map of the earliest US Vances

I don't know if anyone has a list of the various mapping sites out there that help you show locations and migration paths on a world map.  I don't have a full list, but I've seen some of them in action and they work pretty well.

Me, I'm a visual guy.  I don't get the sense of where my ancestors lived or how far they traveled unless I see it on a map.  For instance, when I read all the Vance DNA group reports (available under "Vance/Vans/Wentz Y-DNA Project" on the right hand side of this blog or else here) I can see how the research connects the early Vances in the US, but I don't get a good sense of how many or how widespread they were.  So I mapped them.

I picked the Community Walk website mostly because it was easy and free, and it has pretty good options.  The picture shows the results - you can access and play with them using this link:

http://www.communitywalk.com/earliest_us_vances_by_dna_group/earliest_us_vances_by_dna_group/map/1602712 

Each pin is a county where genealogists have found their earliest Vance ancestor in the US.  The colors show what DNA Group (from 1 to 8) that ancestor belonged to based on the y-DNA tests of their descendants.  Using the Legend, you can turn on or off certain Groups, and using the "Show Marker Titles" option, you can see the ancestor's name and the record and year that first showed them in the US (warning:  it gets pretty crowded if you turn on titles when ALL Groups are shown on the map!).

Please note not ALL of these Vances were the first immigrants into the US - many are known to be born in the US, and some have been confirmed through DNA analysis to be related to each other.  They're just the different lines we all have found connections to (that still have male descendants available to be DNA tested).

Interesting?  I thought it was.  Do you have a better site for mapping your ancestors?

George Vance the Vicequicentenarian

While compiling his book in 1860 on the Irish Vances, William Balbirnie interviewed several members of the family of John Vance (a Dublin politician and Member of Parliament at that time) who all said that the first Vance in their family who came to Ireland

…was named George, that in 1662 he fled from Wigtonshire [in Cumberland in northern England near the border with Scotland] to the North of Ireland, in consequence of having married his cousin Grace, a rich heiress, and settled near Dungannon in County Tyrone…Further, that this George was born in Scotland about 1637…and died about 1757, aged about 120 years [Balbirnie, p. 57].

Balbirnie dismisses the whole story partly because he couldn’t quite believe someone would live to be 120:

The great age to which it is stated that this refugee lived…seems an incredible statement. ..after the most diligent enquiry…we have not been able to receive any confirmation of this astounding statement…We do think this story is incredible [Balbirnie, p. 58].

It’s a shame Balbirnie didn’t have Internet.  It turns out that George Vance’s advanced age actually WAS remembered starting all the way back in 1758 when the Scots Magazine in that year even gave a little extra personal health information in his obituary under Deaths:

Another publication from 1758, the Gentlemen’s Monthly Intelligencer, also gave an obituary for George.   Then in 1799 he was included in a book about supercentenarians (those over 100 years old) called Human Longevity.  In 1820, he was one of Kirby Magazine’s Remarkable Characters.  John O’Hart also mentions George Vance in his famous 1881 book Irish Pedigrees – and O’Hart even mentions his new set of teeth (except he says at the age of 90)!  George has even made it in modern times into Wikipedia on a list of reported supercentenarians.   In fact, although he’s not much remembered in genealogy circles, the George Vance who died in 1758 in Tyrone, Ireland has had some of the longest-running media coverage of any Vance in history.

Was George really a vicequicentenarian (literally, “20 and 100 years old”)?  Who knows?  But it does seem incredible if he lived almost three and a half times as long as the average human lifespan at that time.  John O’Hart claims to have found George’s baptism record from 1640, which would certainly support the story if it were the same George Vance.  

George Vance’s real age (and the health of his teeth) may never be known for sure.  But his story also raises a very possible second immigrant ancestor to Ireland for the Vances.  John O’Hart says George’s father was named Joseph Vans, probably born around 1590 and from either Cumberland or Scotland, and he also documents some of George’s descendants in Ireland and England up to about 1877, several of whom became prominent Vances in Dublin or London.   The origin of this Vance family could certainly be from another de Vaux/Vans family line, since both the English Vaux and the Scottish Vans families lived in areas close to Wigton for centuries.  Or they could be from a completely different origin of the Vance surname.

No modern Vances have connected their family trees to George yet, but it is certainly a possible ancestry for any of the Irish Vance DNA groups.   It would be interesting if we could find a male descendant of George’s to test and see what DNA Group he was from.   Or maybe we should just check if any of our older relatives have noticed any new teeth…

The Vance History "Travel Guide"

Have you ever read something about Vance history and wondered just where in the world it happened?  Ever come across a town of Vance or a Vance Peak and wondered how it got its name?  Or have you ever planned a trip and wondered if there was anything to see there related to your ancestry?  If the answer to any of those is "Yes", then the World Guide to Vance History is for you!  Click on the link under "Useful Information" on the right hand side of this blog and discover the hidden world of Vance history.

Don't worry... we're not going into competition with the major travel companies.  This is a community project to collect together in one place a reference to all the spots around the world associated with the Vance surname and its history.  Along the way we're also collecting stories, legends, and facts of interest about these places to highlight their role in Vance ancestry. 

But we need your help!  The first draft of this Guide has 47 locations in 7 countries, and we focused on collecting historical locations in England, Scotland, and Ireland first so you'll see we have a lot of entries for those countries already.  But you'll also notice we've only barely started - or haven't started at all - in other countries yet.  What Vance-related locations do YOU know of?  We invite you ALL to contribute - this will be a massive undertaking before it's anywhere close to finished, so we need your help to collect up all the many locations around the world that have an association with Vance history.  I think you'll get the idea if you take a look at the current version of the Guide.

But for now, even as a first draft, enjoy the World Guide to Vance History!

The "Vance Coat of Arms"

In the past two months since the Vance History Online blog has been active, we have been visited over 1,200 times by more than 300 people!  Thank you for your interest in Vance history and the Vance Family Association and we hope you have found this site useful. 

One of the most popular reasons people visit the blog is to learn about coats of arms associated with the Vance family name.    If this is an interest of yours, you've probably already seen the What's this Coat of Arms at the top? link under Useful Information on the right hand side of the page that describes the VFA's Vance coat of arms.  But from that link you can now also visit a slideshow summary of the other coats of arms related to the Vances at What is the Vance Coat of Arms?. 

It turns out that's not an easy question to answer, since there were many!  But we hope the summary gives you a good overview of Vance-related heraldry - at least enough to either answer your original question, or narrow down your search. 

If you are interested in any particular coat of arms from the slideshow, please drop me a comment or email and I will be happy to send you the related image.