Banff, Scotland
Banff became a destination on our Scotland trip for one reason: I found out that Banff was my ancestors’ home. The then Joss (or Joass) Clan lived in this area of Northern Scotland up until shortly after the Darien Scheme. The Joass Clan were landowners (Lairds) who owned lands in Banff, Colleonard, and Alvah, and who invested in the new colony. Unfortunately, many Scots, including my ancestors, lost their savings investing in an ill-fated colony located in present-day Panama. The colony aimed to control trade through the narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In theory, it seemed like a great idea, and ultimately that goal led to the construction of the Panama Canal. The problem, though, is that the Darien Gap is very inhospitable. Today, no road still connects Panama and Colombia, and many tropical diseases still exist in the place the Scots unsuccessfully tried to colonize in the late 17th century.
My family, now much poorer than they were before they lost their investments, ended up sailing to Northern Ireland for a new life, where their family name was influenced/changed into Joyce. The family was likely part of another scheme: the Plantation of Ulster, where Lowland Protestant Scots moved to Ulster and surrounding areas to help King James I of England (James VI in Scotland) spread Protestantism in mostly Catholic Ireland. This scheme had many effects on future world history, including the breakdown of Northern Ireland today and the history of Scotch-Irish culture in the Appalachian region of the United States. The newly christened Joyces did not stay long in Ireland before moving on to the Virginia Colony. The Joyces sought financial and religious freedom in the colony, which was then part of Great Britain, after England and Scotland merged in 1707 to unite the island under one banner (Wales was already mostly integrated into England by then). While the Joyces left Scotland over 300 years ago, we sought out any traces of the family still in the area.
I learned about Banff through the research of the Joss/Joyce Family Association. The clan patriarch was Thomas Joass, born in 1609 in Aberdeenshire and died in March 1665 in Colleonard. Not much is known about Thomas, but every patrilineal descendant in his line shares the same SNP R-Y11201 DNA marker. Thomas’s second son was named William, and he served as a Laird; his wife, Beatrix, was from the prominent Fraser family in Aberdeenshire. I was surprised to learn that the fictional Jamie Fraser of Outlander fame would have been from this same family. After that, William and Beatrix’s son Thomas moved to County Down in Northern Ireland. Thomas had two sons, Alexander and Thomas, who moved to the Virginia colony, and their descendants settled in present-day Rockingham and Stokes Counties in North Carolina. Every Joyce descendant in Virginia and North Carolina is related; I am a direct descendant of both brothers. What was not known until recently was that all of the Joyces from home were part Scottish. Only with DNA testing since 2017 has the family realized we have Scottish roots.
When we planned a trip to Scotland, I knew that I needed to add Banff to the itinerary. I really had no idea what we might find or see there. All I had were a few place names and the family’s older name. Here’s the outcome of our journey through northern Scotland.
We couldn’t find any definitive direct links to our ancestors, but the trip offered lots of reflection. First, I felt a kinship with this place. Although I have been to other countries in Europe where my DNA is traced, I had never knowingly been to a specific town or village tied to my heritage. Second, this journey helped me see how my family was involved in historical events before the start of the United States. The Joss/Joass/Joyce family was directly involved in the Darien Scheme, the Plantation of Ulster Scheme, and bringing the Presbyterian Church to the American colonies. Three, after visiting the land here in Scotland, I could see why my ancestors fell in love with Piedmont and the Appalachian Mountains. Our journey may have been incomplete, but we now have a link to the old country, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes us. Being in northern Scotland on this journey gave me a kinship with a place I never knew existed. Finally, some people see DNA tests as an intrusion on privacy, but without this knowledge, we would never have known how connected our family is to Scotland. I was so glad to learn about my Scottish roots, which I had only assumed existed.