JD Vance’s Irish ancestry claim hits a genealogical dead end

https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/jd-vance-scots-irish-family-history-682pjm5j5

https://archive.ph/2025.05.25-202325/https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/jd-vance-scots-irish-family-history-682pjm5j5

DUP-commissioned report fails to find a link between Donald Trump’s vice-president — a self-declared Scots-Irish — and Ireland
Daniel Sanderson | Jason Johnson
Saturday May 24 2025, 7.30pm BST, The Sunday Times

The claim to white working-class Scots-Irish identity has become part of JD Vance’s projected image

JD Vance takes pride in declaring himself to be a “Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart” but a trawl of genealogy records has found no evidence linking the US vice-president to Ireland.

In an attempt to link Vance to Ulster, a DUP minister commissioned researchers to dig into the ancestral past of the controversial Republican Party politician.
A glossy 24-page dossier titled “The Family Footsteps of JD Vance” was produced, but researchers admitted they had “not established a conclusive family link” to Northern Ireland.
Gordon Lyons, the Northern Ireland minister for communities, had been ­hoping to present a copy of the report personally to Vance over the St Patrick’s Day period in Washington DC.

President Trump’s right-hand man has long claimed to have Celtic links, writing in his bestselling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy: “To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish ­hillbilly at heart.”
As Scots-Irish, or Ulster-Scots, his ­family history would be tied directly to plantation-era Scots settlers whose descendants, generations after arrival in Ireland, set out for America.

One historian in Northern Ireland had noted at the time that one of Vance’s ancestors might have been killed during the 1689 Siege of Derry, a powerful event in the unionist story during which Protestants held out in the walled city against Catholic forces for 105 days.

Vance’s bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy was adapted into a 2020 film starring Glenn Close

That point was raised within the Department for Communities, as research for the dossier was commissioned via the Public Records Office for Northern Ireland in November.

Emails obtained via a freedom of information request show that in February Lyons’s office was advised that “it has not been possible to establish conclusive proof of a direct Vance link back to Ulster at this stage”.

He noted that inquiries were continuing in the US but that the researcher had “run into the proverbial brick wall” and amid continuing work there was “no guarantee” of success.

An official at Lyons’s office said: “There is maybe a bit more to do locally to better trace [the vice-president’s] roots, but at this stage I think we have to go with what we have

He said that work should begin “to get a draft done in a day or so but this is a top priority”.There was not enough time for a hardback edition, which the minister had requested, but a “coated paper” production of 25 copies was sanctioned, which Lyons would sign.

Gordon Lyons, the Northern Ireland minister for communities, commissioned the research into Vance’s past

The finished product, while declaring no proven link to Ulster, lists family trees with gaps, carries a historical map of Ireland and one of Coagh, Co Tyrone, where it has been claimed Vance has roots.
The dossier, which includes images of the vice-president with his family and taking the oath of office, tracks his current bloodline in Ohio back to Virginia in the 1800s.

The family were at the time rooted in Appalachia, a narrative that Vance, 40, championed in his memoir.
Yet from there the trail runs cold, with no solid evidence linking to an Andrew Williamson Vance, born in Ireland circa 1666 and who emigrated circa 1733 to America.

He is a descendant of Lancelot Vance, who died in the Siege of Derry and who was the son of Reverend John Vance, who left Scotland for Ireland in 1611.
John Hagan, a Co Tyrone historian, said he had traced Vance’s ancestors to the village of Coagh, insisting ties existed to Reverend Vance.
The taoiseach Micheál Martin meet with Vance in March during Martin’s official visit to the US

However, the Vance Family Association, which traces their ancestry to settlers in Ulster in the 17th century, does not support claims that Vance is linked to Reverend John Vance.

Its president, Dave Vance, said it had been running a genealogical research project using DNA for a decade and was certain the vice-president had no direct connection to “the John Vance who is popularly assumed by many genealogists to be the sole progenitor of all Irish Vances”.

In his memoir Vance said that, rather than identifying with “white Anglo-Saxon Protestant” pioneers, he felt instead part of “the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree”.

Liam Kennedy, professor of American studies and director of the Clinton ­Institute at University College Dublin, said while the claim to “white working class Scots-Irish identity” had become vital to Vance’s projected image, it ­“merits more attention”.
He added: “It is an effort to claim a ‘real’ white working-class association — in the sense that it is based on pioneer not immigrant origins.”

A Department for Communities spokesman said: “The research results traced a potential link to an Andrew ­Williamson Vance who was born in ­Ireland circa 1666 and emigrated circa 1733 to America.
“The research has been passed to US government officials and is hoped to be formally presented at a future date.”