Bath - 11th October, 2004 That's brilliant - thanks so much Louise. Having a birth year for John Vane makes life a whole lot easier! I've still got a way to go to pin his heritage down precisely - but your information is very helpful, thanks. Louise's list of offspring from William Harry Vane & Katherine Powlett tallies fairly closely with mine - eight recorded children, spanning 1788 to circa 1803. I have Laura Vane's birthday as 6th Jan 1800, not 1808, and I have child 4 (the 1795 one who lasted a mere 3 months) as Catherine instead of Caroline, and of course there are plenty of variations of spelling of all the 'Katherines' in the Vane heritage, and lastly, the 1st Duke confuses us all because although he was baptised 'William Harry' he referred to himself as 'William Henry' thoughout his life - but none of these subtleties makes much difference to the core information, I think. The important things, like the marriage date for William & Katherine of 17th Sep 1787, tallies with my info, and I have a death-date for Katherine of 17-Jun-1807, so that would indicate that the Rev John Vane was definitely born whilst William and Katherine were still technically married, and right in the middle of Katherine's 'child-producing' years. Not what I was expecting at all - but all the more intriguing, in my opinion. I can't say, given what I've read about the Duke's 'love of life', that I'm all that surprised, but this would be the first 'obvious' evidence of some kind of 'out-of-wedlock' activity by the Duke. Hitherto, I've often wondered, and suspected, but never had anything solid to go on. That is now, of course, changing! The Duke's (although he was at the time just the 5th Baron Barnard and 3rd Earl of Darlington, and no more - he became Marquis of Cleveland in 1827, and Duke of Cleveland in 1833) second marriage, to Elizabeth Russell, took place on 27th July 1813 at William Harry's London residence at 31 St James Square, by 'special licence', about six years after the death of his first wife Katherine. It's therefore really difficult to determine for how long the Duke had known Elizabeth already, and how well! Certainly his marriage to Elizabeth 'outraged polite society', it is recorded (even in Burke's Peerage). Quite probably, it outraged Katherine Powlett's mother the most - said mother being the last Duchess of Bolton, also named Katherine Powlett (though née Lowther) - and, worse, she was sister to the Duke's OWN mother! Alas, I do not yet have a birth and death-date for her - but the point is, all the surviving seven children from Katherine & William's marriage changed their surnames in 1813, to Powlett (or Vane Powlett) on the express instructions of the Duchess of Bolton's Will. Was this as a direct result of William Harry's second marriage, which happened in the same year? Or was it just that the Duchess coincidentally died around that time, and thus a Will that had been drafted some time ago, was enforced by chance at the same time as the marriage? Or perhaps, if the Duchess of Bolton had died much earlier, and it was an old Will, probated much earlier too, she may have had a generic 'if he marries again in the future they must change their surnames if they wish to inherit from the extinct Bolton line' type requirement drafted (wisely) 'just in case'. I'm still researching into this, and have nothing firm, but it looks to me as if the Duchess of Bolton either expected something like this, or knew William Harry too well - I don't believe (yet) that it was just a formality of inheritence of the extinct Duchy of Bolton line, but it could turn out to be just that. In any case, the Vane children that inherited the Duke of Cleveland titles, each in turn had to change their surnames BACK from Powlett to Vane again, upon inheritence of their titles, so it was all a bit pointless! Not to mention confusing for the likes of us researchers years later. Elizabeth Russell was indeed a market gardener's daughter - he being Robert Russell of Newton House in Burmiston (also written Burnestone, now Burneston), in the county of North Yorkshire. Robert Russell was a market-gardener, and Elizabeth made a 'name' for herself by being the mistress of Thomas Coutts, the banker whose name is still remembered as the famous bankers for the Royal Family in the Strand, London. Elizabeth is variously recorded as the Dowager Duchess of Cleveland, and even a private history, written by the last Duchess of Cleveland (the 4th Duke's wife) Catherine Lucy Wilhemina Vane/Powlett (née Stanhope), although it mentioned in great detail the Dowager Duchess's gifts and inheritances to the 4th Duke, most of which were installed at Battle, the 4th Duke's residence, it didn't mention ANY specific details of the Dowager Duchess herself. In fact, one could say it studiously ignored her, which was odd considering the rest of the detail in the documents! Methinks there hangs a tale, and one which the Vanes were quite at pains to play down - but of course, I may just be giving in to my romantic 'soap-opera' side, which hopes to find a juicy story! The other useful bit of info concerned the birthplace of John Vane - I am extremely glad it turns out to be somewhere up in the northeast corner of England, because that area features so heavily in ALL the historical information on the Vane family (and a great many of the spin-offs and 'married-ins' that surround them). The fact that his birthplace is given as Durham (most probably, a reference to County Durham, rather than the city itself, and could therefore have included any number of the Duke of Cleveland's estates in that area), is not in the least surprising, but it is curious that it's not North Yorkshire, because that's where Burneston, and Elizabeth Russell were based. This doesn't rule out Russell as being the mother, of course, but it's not a 'spot-on' match, and thus may tend to suggest further that Elizabeth wasn't the mother. She kept Newton House all her life, I believe, and it was later inherited by another 'Russell' (also a Reverend, I believe). So, I'm still clueless when it comes to answering the question 'who was mum?' (or maybe, who was real dad, if the out-of-wedlock events happened the other way round, and the Duke simply 'recognised' the child, though this is fairly unlikely). But certainly, having a date of birth, enables me to start looking in the right place. Thanks again for all your help - when/if I get anywhere with this, I will add it to the growing collection of bits and pieces that is slowly forming at my website at http://techno.demon.co.uk/Fitzroy-Vane-Pulteney My best wishes to you both, and please do keep in touch, Regards Neil Jackson                                                                   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Spain, 11th October I was contacted this evening by Louise Argent who told me of your website and about the mystery of the Reverend John Vane's beginnings. Louise Argent said she had seen messges from me to a mailing list for Northumberland County Durham to which I am susbcribed and where my family history lies. I have an interest in the surname Rusell in Northallerton, my Gt. Gt. Grandmother was born a Russell in that town and I have been doing a quite a bit of research on that name. Sometime ago I made contact with another lady descended from a sister of my Gt Gt. Grandmother Russell who told me she has a notebook which was handed to her by the the last member of the Russell family in Northallerton shortly before that person died in 1995. I have a transcript of some of those notes from the book and one of them is that an Elizabeth Russell born in 1783 at Ingleby Arncliffe North Yorkshire the daughter of John Russell and his wife Elizabeth married in 1813 to William Harvey Vane, duke of Cleveland in 1813. The note book tells of Elizaebth having been the mistress of William Harvey Vane for a number of years before their marriage. I have never found evidence of any illegitimate children of this liason to date but another lady I am touch with who also has an interest in the name of Russell and who did a bit of research for me in Yorkshire discovered one or two things which might be of interest to you too. I can post you copies of these items if you would like them but you would need to follow up any leads they might give. But they might lead to your resoliving the mystery of who John Vane's parents were exactly. Let me know if I can be of help Regards Jenny DeAngelis