Questions about Jewish Vosper coat of arms

From: Yvonne Morant
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 6:17 PM
To: Info Seeker
Subject: RE: Questions about Jewish Vosper coat of arms

Thanks Teri. This is soooo interesting. Especially, that Francois suggests the Vospers need not have been Jewish when they emigrated but why would a family claim to have been of Jewish origin if they weren't somewhere along the line? Anyway, we know from the DNA results that there is Jewish ancestry so the suggestion that they came from Silesia fits. All this still leaves us with a big disconnection between Johanes Vosper, Jewish refugee, and the Trevospers.

Possibly the Burkes Landed Gentry referred to in the article from the Journal is an earlier edition than is currently available. Is this a specific item of research we could ask the Cornwall FHS to research? How did you get access to the Journal? Are you a member yourself?

Yvonne

From: Info Seeker
Sent: Friday, 5 February 2016 5:05 AM
To: 'François R. Velde'
Subject: RE: Questions about Jewish Vosper coat of arms

Dear François ,

Thank you very much for your time and attention.  I and my cousins had seen the item in Notes and Queries 1873, but, as there are no sources or replies to the note, it has remained questionable in our minds.  Just today I found this reference from an issue of the Cornwall Family History Society's "Journal":

Then, again, I can't find any mention of Vosper in Burke's Landed Gentry, calling into question the verifiability of the info.

However, a family origin in Silesia or Germany would go far to explain the Ashkenazi heritage in our DNA results.

I feel a bit of the fool for not having seen the notation at the bottom showing the Thomas connection on the arms.  Thank you for taking the time to point it out.  Reading these old books is quite problematic for a novice like me.  I'm so flummoxed by the abbreviations that the obvious is lost.

In the time since I sent you the note below we have made some progress finding a connection to the Trevosper family. 

Thank you again for taking the time to answer, and particularly for explaining the 'Thomas' reference.

Sincerely,

Teri

From: François R. Velde
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 12:00 PM
To: Info Seeker
Subject: Re: Questions about Jewish Vosper coat of arms

I don't have much to offer, but I would advise you to read more closely the pedigree in the Visitations volume.  The pedigree was not drafted by a herald, but, as the footnote indicates, by Rev. Samuel Vosper-Thomas (d. 28 Jan 1909).  According to the pedigree, he was the son of Samuel Vosper (1814-83) and Grace Thomas (1813-63), and he assumed the name Vosper-Thomas in 1866, presumably also quartering at that time the arms of Vosper and Thomas (see footnote 3 on p. 625).  So the Thomas connection belongs to the 19th c., and this quartering would only be used by the descendants of that marriage.

A note in Notes and Queries 1873 (https://books.google.com/books?id=L_zfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA305) suggests that the arms Or a cross moline sable were borne since at least 1620, that the Vospers were from Germany and settled in Cornwall, and were of Jewish origin - it does not mean that they were not Christians at the time they emigrated to Cornwall.


On 1/23/2016 2:58 PM, Info Seeker wrote:

Hi.  I read with interest your online publication of "Jewish Heraldry"  while doing research on an Arms description in the following snip:

This information is from The Visitations of the County of Cornwall, page 624, in regard to a Vosper of St. Neot, a Jewish refugee, settled in Cornwall, in the time of Henry VII (1457-1509).  In particular, my research indicates that this was Johanes Vosper who was born about 1511 and died 10 Mar 1590.

In your "Jewish Heraldry" article you indicate "Jews were expelled in 1290 and do not reappear in England until the 16th c., when Marranos fleeing the Iberic peninsula settled and were tolerated."

Wikipedia states in its definition of Marrano:   "Under state pressure in the late 15th century, many Jews in the Iberian Peninsula converted to Christianity. The numbers who converted and the effects of various migrations in and out of the area have been the subject of historical debate. Aphylogeographic study in 2008 of 1,150 volunteer Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups appeared to support the idea that the number of forced conversions has been significantly underestimated, as 20% of the tested Iberian population had haplogroups consistent with Sephardi ancestry. This percentage was suggested as representing the proportion of Sephardi in the population at the time of mass conversions in the 14th and 15th centuries.^[4]"

However, the descendants of Johanes Vosper have DNA tested as being Ashkenzi Jewish, not Sephardi, and belong to Haplogroup J1 M267.

The fact that the Herald (in the snip above) attributes a coat of arms to Vosper described as:  "Or. A cross Moline Sa. Quartering Thomas per pale nebulae Arg. And Ax.  A crescent Gu. For difference" indicates to me, a complete novice to heraldry, that he had lived in Cornwall and had served in the military prior to being a 'refugee', and may have had a familial relationship with a Thomas family, notably , as the description of their Arms is identical to part of that included in the Vosper description.  (From The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales…)

This arms is also described as

in An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms Belonging to Families, page 1002, under Nebuly.

AND in  from The British herald; or, Cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility .

Have you ever come across Jews in Cornwall who have coats of arms in this early time period who did not come from Iberia?  Is there any significance to the "quartering Thomas" statement?

I have found this commercially available Coat of Arms for the Vosper family, but it does not appear to fully match the description, missing the quartering with Thomas and the red crescent, though it does contain the motto.  Do you concur?

I IMAGINE it should look more like this:

BUT, I am no heraldry expert.

My main goal in contacting you is to see if you can help me understand the ARMS statement to see if it can help me determine the origin of this VOSPER family. 

Does the quartering with the Thomas family indicate that the wife of Johanes VOSPER may have had the surname Thomas?  Do you think the "Sir William AP Thomas" noted above refers to William AP Thomas?

I understand that this is a hobby to you in a very busy time of your life, but any insight you can give me on this would be highly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and attention, and assistance.

Teri

Descendant of Johanes Vosper