During his visit to Washington in March, Stormont communities minister Gordon Lyons really wanted to deliver a hard-backed booklet to JD Vance detailing the recently installed vice-president’s direct links to Ulster.
It was a project Mr Lyons ordered within days of President Donald Trump winning the United States election in November.
Things did not quite work out as planned for the “top priority” mission.
US vice-president JD Vance PICTURE: PA (Ben Birchall/PA)
A researcher was hired in the hope of tracing a link between an 18th century emigrant called Andrew Williamson Vance, and Coagh, Co Tyrone, to the vice-president.
This line had a storied history that included prominent clergymen and claims of one dying during the 1689 Siege of Derry.
In the foreword to a later-finished booklet detailing the research, signed by Mr Lyons and planned to be presented to Mr Vance, it was stated that the “theory was that Andrew Williamson Vance who was born around 1666 in Ireland was considered the immigrant ancestor”.
The dossier was to be presented to vice-president JD Vance
However, just weeks before the St Patrick’s Day visit there were problems. The researcher had hit the “proverbial brick wall” and was telling the department “no definitive link could be found”.
Undeterred, department officials decided to go ahead and put together two dozen copies of a glossy 24-page dossier, downgraded from hardback to “coated” paper as time was running out, but still claiming the link with Andrew Williamson Vance. It still cost £2,251 to produce, it has emerged following a Freedom of Information request.
Words from JD Vance included in the booklet
Mr Lyons did not hand over the document personally to Mr Vance as was hoped, but it was passed instead to US officials, the Department for Communities said.
The Irish News has uncovered, without much difficulty, fairly definitive evidence from long-running DNA-based research that Mr Vance is not descended from Andrew, but is of an entirely different line.
The Vance families were concentrated around Barnbarroch in Scotland before some headed across during the Ulster plantation, including to Tyrone but also Donegal and other areas.
The dossier tried to link JD Vance to the Co Tyrone village of Coagh PICTURE: JUSTIN KERNOGHAN
Dave Vance, a genealogist and president of the Vance Family Association, said he is “certain” there is no direct link between Andrew Vance and the US vice-president.
“There is no DNA link between the two sets of Vances,” he said.
In 2022, his group published DNA-based research founded on a more than decade-long project tracing the various Vance family trees as far as they could go.
Communities minister Gordon Lyons and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly meet with President Trump during their March visit to Washington DC PICTURE: KELVIN BOYES/PRESS EYE (Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye/Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye )
One line mirrors that contained in the department-commissioned booklet now sitting somewhere in the White House, until it doesn’t. There are three generations of the wonderfully named Meekin Vance in this line, before landing at Abner.
Mr Lyons’ booklet states: “It is also believed that Abner’s father was Ephraim Vance, the son of Andrew Williamson Vance previously mentioned, although I have been unable to locate any records to prove the link.” The booklet also contains references to Coagh, where Andrew had lived.
But the DNA research published three years previously revealed that what is known about this line ends with an unconnected and differently first named Vance and with ultimately unknown origins outside the US.
Dave Vance does believe they came from Ulster.
Abner’s dad was called Matthew, whose birthplace is unknown but who died Augusta, Virginia in 1771. He was born about seven years before Andrew landed in the US with his then 15-year-old son Ephraim, according to the published research.
The DNA-based tree in the dossier currently somewhere in the White House
When details of the “proverbial brick wall” encountered by the researcher emerged in May, the department doubled down, stating: “The research results traced a potential link to an Andrew Wiliamson 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.”
Emails released earlier this year via a Freedom of Information request reveal that in February Mr Lyons’ office was told “it has not been possible to establish conclusive proof of a direct Vance link back to Ulster at this stage”.
The researcher had “run into the proverbial brick wall” and amid continuing work there was “no guarantee” of success, according to the emails obtained by The Times newspaper.
An official at Mr Lyons’ office wrote: “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.”
The official added that work should begin “to get a draft done in a day or so but this is a top priority”.
Instead of the preferred hardback edition which the minister requested, it was decided to move ahead with a “coated paper” production, which Mr Lyons would sign.
As Mr Lyons travelled to Washington in March, a department spokesperson said: “The Public Record Office of NI has been working on tracing JD Vance’s ancestry and has compiled a history which Minister Lyons plans to present during today’s event in Washington.”
The research was contracted out.
In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance wrote: “To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.”
Arguably, Mr Lyons might want to ask the White House for the booklet back and do some more work if he wants to nail down that heart’s actual lineage – before any formal presentation.