The VICKERS

Laois/Leix County (ex Queens)

Bantry (Irish: Beanntraí, meaning "(place of) Beann's people") is a town in the civil parish of Kilmocomoge in the barony of Bantry on the coast of West County Cork, Ireland. It lies at the head of Bantry Bay, a deep-water gulf extending for 30 km (19 mi) to the west. The Beara peninsula is to the northwest, with Sheep's Head also nearby, on the peninsula south of Bantry Bay.

The origin of the last name VICKERS

Irish / Canadian

This is a summary only of all the informations I have collected over several years about the origin of the surname Vickers, Vickery, Vicars or McVickers and of its connection to my Irish family. I would not say, however, that it is said to be totaly accurate but it is the best snipets compilations I have gathered.

My key conclusions are:

1. My version of Vickers is probably rooted in Scandinavia from the word Vik.
2. There are many possible origins for the name...

Is there a relation with the Vikings?

Any Vickers will ask the question. Well it is from a Western European perspective so does not include such origins of Vickers as Eastern Europe or India. It also describes possible connections to related names such as Wick, Vick, and others.

Vicking or Vicar

...Many years ago I was told that Vickers came from Viking or Vicar. I left this subject alone until 2006 when Y-DNA* testing revealed we are haplogroup Q*. This piqued my interest again. A haplogroup is an extended family with similar Y-DNA*. Geneticists consider this haplogroup to have resulted from a mutation that occurred in a man in Central Asia about 14000 years ago. So I began to research how I came to be labeled Vick. 

A majority of some smaller tribes in far northeastern Europe and north Central Asia such as the Selkups and Kets are haplogroup Q*, as are many of the Altaic groups. American Indians are a subgroup called haplogroup Q3 which is not the same Vickers’ Q*. Hap Q* but not Q3 is in Western European populations in small percentages; the largest percentages are in Icelanders and Shetlanders with 4%, who have very strong Norse ties.
Western Europeans tend to be haplogroup R. Other haplogroups which occur in British populations are E, G, I, J as well as Q*.
So how did we come to be named Vickers and how did we carry the haplogroup Q* mutation?...

(*) Clik the following links for explanations of Haplogroup Q Q-M242 Project Y-DNA Haplogroup Q Haplogroup Q-M242
Hplogroup Q (Y-DNA)

Celts

...There are various opinions about the answer to these questions.
Lets start with an overview of the history of Great Britain. It was originally settled possibly sometime before the last ice age by people that today we call Celts, who were also in other areas of Western Europe such as Spain. Their early history is lost in the mists of time. Today many consider the populations of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and even England, to be basically Celtic although there is strong Y-DNA* evidence of Anglo/Saxon roots. From 50 to 400 AD the area of Great Britain we call England was part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire

...Romans brought people from all over the Roman Empire to this colony. Most Romans probably left when the Empire disintegrated.
Late in the history of the Roman Empire, Europe saw invasions from far northeastern Europe into Western Europe. These invaders had names like Vandals, Goths, Huns, and Avars (who were pressured by Altaic Turks among others). These invaders put pressure on the existing tribes of Western Europe like the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians. Related tribes were in Scandinavia. They all spoke related languages such as Old Norse, Old Saxon and Anglish. Many of them were haplogroup I. 

Many in these Germanic tribes moved across the North Sea to Great Britain around 650 AD. Among them were the Danes.
For reasons not known beginning about 800 to about 1050 certain northwestern Europeans, call them Norse, began to take to the sea. These were close cousins of the earlier Germanic settlers in Great Britain. We have come to call them Vikings. Both the word Norse and the word Viking could be rooted in Latin...

The Norse/Vikings

...The Norse/Vikings ranged over many costal and river areas of Western Europe and as far as Western Siberia and the Caspian Sea and later to Iceland and Greenland. They had settlements in many parts of the British Isles including the southwest.

The Norman conquest of England in 1066 brought additional Norse/Viking influence to England via France.

Genetics is beginning to unravel the question about how much mixing there was between the Celts and these newer arrivals. However genetics cannot yet distinguish whether the origins of certain British were from the Danes, Norse or Normans, or possibly earlier immigrants. 

During this period of Germanic expansion the languages of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Scotland, and England developed from the older more common Norse/Germanic. The reason this is significant to our story is how the letters W and V are pronounced.

For example Brunswick has as its root the word “wick” for settlement. Viking was originally a verb based on the work vik, which meant inlet/harbor or possibly settlement, in other words a place of refuge. It may be that someone who went raiding (i.e. viking) was called a viker/vicker. The letter W in Scandinavian/German/Dutch/Frisian is pronounced as a V. So many words that have come down to us that start with a W were originally pronounced as a V such as the “wick” in Randwick...

"Vik" for settlement or inlet...

Possibly at the root of these and other common English words is the Latin word “vicus” which came from the word for house and came to mean village, city area, or market center. Or it could be from a Norse word for bay; the large bay with Oslo, Norway at its upper end was originally called Viken. Regarding the word “vicus” I find the similarity to the meaning of “vik” to be too close for chance.

So Vick is probably rooted in the Norse word "Vik" for settlement or inlet. It may also be rooted in the word Viking which also goes back to the root word for settlement or bay.

However my Vickers/Vicars ancestors were a unique Vickers because they carried the haplogroup Q* mutation. While it is possible that this characteristic could have come from the Romans, Jews, or the early Germanic settlers in England, I find the Viking connection compelling primarily because my name is Vickers but also because the location of VICKs in area of England which were typically Norse. But before you conjure up images of wild warlike men, remember that the Norse/Vikings were settlers and colonizers of many places in Great Britain, Ireland, Normandy, and such places as the Shetland Islands, Iceland and Greenland, and in places much further from Scandinavia.

The Viking Invasions with Viking settlements in Ireland.
Queens Co (our origins) is in the middle of the
triangle of Limerick, Cork and Wexford.

History of Vikings in Ireland

Also genetics shows that a number of North American VICKs are haplogroup R - VICKs with ancestry in Great Britain. These VICKs have no implied Norse connections...

Variant Names

The word Vickers or Vikers or Vickery or Vick or Vik has other possible surname connections. For example the Dutch surname Van Wyck was probably someone from a settlement or possibly someone with a Viking family history. A similar Irish/Scottish name is MacViker/McVickers which could have meant son of a vicar or son of the Viking. Another example is the English and German surname Wick which in the Germanic way would have been pronounced as Vik. There are WICKs today in England where the W is pronounced as a W. Then there are the French forms which may have been spelled Viq or Vique which when transferred to German may have become Vick but could have been pronounced as Fick or may have been spelled Wick as pronounced as Vick; the German V is said as an F and the German W is pronounced as a V. Upon emigration to the US these “VICKs” likely would have spelled their name Fick of Wick.

Note: there is no connection between the slang German word pronounced fick and Vick except Vick when pronounced in German is said “fick”. Because fick is German profanity my belief is Vick was always spelled Wick in German. 

Of course there are other roots for names related to Vick. I have already mentioned viker/vicker as it may have come from Viking. Also someone who worked for the Vicar of the church may have been referred to by the shortened version, Vik or Vick; interesting that this type of vicar is of French origin rooted in the Latin “vicus”. And someone who made wicks for candles may have been call Wick. Or someone from a village named Vic could have used the name. Also there are areas in France and Spain that are referred to by the name Vic. And there is the famous De Vic/Vick clock in Paris.

Vickery/Vickers

My personal researches brought me to some new discovery of our true ancesters which identify Vickery as our modern origins.  

John Vickery's origin and family were extensively researched around the 1970s and a report written up by Sir Philip Vickery in 1980. Much of the following text has been copied from Sir Philip's report.

John Vickery, the founder of the family in W. Cork, spent the greater part of his life near Bantry on the southern coast of Bantry Bay in north west Co. Cork. His origin is obscure. The story handed down to later generations by his children runs somewhat as follows: About the year 1740 he and a brother named George were shipwrecked off the south coast of Ireland. They had been sailing from Antigua in the then British West Indies, presumably carrying a cargo of sugar to an English or Irish port. One rumour is that John either owned or was captain of the vessel. Both were saved and landed at Baltimore in southwest Co. Cork.

John made his way to Bantry and settled there. He married and had a large family. It was at first thought that he had married a Bessie Stanley, but a family Bible discovered in America gave his wife’s name as Catherine Swanton. (Unfortunately, this Bible appears to have subsequently become lost.) The Stanleys and the Swantons are well-known families in Co. Cork and later generations of Vickery married into both families. The Bible also stated that John had been born in 1716 (which implies that at the date of the shipwreck he had been 24), but his place of birth was not recorded. ln 1746 his first child, a son George, was born, and eventually there were 10 children in all.
He lived in Rooska townland, four miles to the west of Bantry, from at least 1755, when he obtained a long-term lease from Richard White (whose grandson later became the lst Earl of Bantry). John farmed there until he died in December, 1796 (or possibly January, 1797). According to the Memoir[1] when his coffin was being conveyed to the old cemetery outside Bantry, the funeral party passed a contingent of troops which had marched from Cork City to Bantry with a view of preventing the French Army from landing in Bantry Bay. Actually, no landing took place because the sailing ships carrying the French Army had all been scattered by a hurricane and forced to retreat to Brest. If the dated given are correct John's age at his death would have been 80. He is buried in the old cemetry where his tomb is still visible.

John's Origins

It has always been assumed that John Vickery and his brother George came to Ireland from Antigua in the British West Indies. Consequently, much of our research has been concentrated there. Unfortunately, such Public Records as exist are in such a deplorable state of decay that it has not been found possible to elicit from them any information of value. We have had, therefore, to rely on books about Antigua published in the 19th Century. The most informative of these was one published in London in 3 volumes in 1894 by Vere Langford Oliver entitled "History of Antigua from 1665 to Present Day". The author had made two visits to the Island and had examined the Public Records which were still legible at that time. He quotes extracts from these Records which he considered worth recording. His researches included several references to families and individuals named Vickery. It is clear from them that several Vickery families were engaged in the sugar planting trade. There is also mention of the death on 10th August, 1717 of a Captain Vickery, who presumably had served in Cromwell's West Indies Army; but there is not sufficient information about any of these Vickerys to connect them with John and George Vickery.
However, in 2014 Ron Price discovered a Registry of Deeds Memorial[2] which raised serious questions about the accuracy of the story. The Memorial was made in 1791 and records a land transfer in 1774, and which referred back to a marriage settlement in 1741. In this settlement John Vickery the Elder and John Vickery the Younger, both of Rooska, passed one third of their holding in West Rooska to a Richard Veren. The marriage in question is most likely to have been between Richard and a daughter of John Vickery the Elder.
The John Vickery the Younger in this Memorial must be John Vickery who died in 1796 (not his son John born 1751) , meaning that his father John Vickery the Elder was already living in Rooska in 1741 (and not living in Antigua!).

Wife: Catherine Swanton
Child: George Vickery
Child: William Vickery
Child: Mary Vickery
Child: Robert Vickery
Child: JOHN VICKERY
Child: Samuel Vickery
Child: Hannah Vickery

Rooska and Bantry
Cork Co. Ireland

Sources

WikiTree profile Vickery-175 created through the import of Sullivan Family Tree.ged on Aug 19, 2012 by Katherine Sullivan. 

WikiTree profile Vickery-198 created through the import of HansonFamily2012Oct.ged on Oct 23, 2012 by Lynn Dosch. 

↑ Memoirs of James Stanley Vickery (1829 - 1911). Hand-written around 1890 in Ballarat, Australia).

↑ Memorial 285094. Registry of Deeds, Dublin, Ireland. Includes the text: ".... John Vickery the Elder and John Vickery the Younger both of Ruska in the Barony of Bear and Bantry and County of Corke did in consideration of a Marriage and Marriage Portion by a certain Article of Intermarriage Dated the Twenty Seventh Day of November one thousand seven hundred and forty one give and Grant unto Richard Veren All that and those the one third Part of the Lands of West Ruska during their Tenure thereof ....

I am a descendant of John Vickers aka Vickery (abt. 1789 Ireland - abt. 1861Canada) was the son of John Vickery the younger,  he also was an immigrant to New Brunswick, Canada about 1827; settled in Blackville, Northumberland County

Northumberland County, New-Brunswick

My paternal ancestry (yDNA) line is as follows (bold are my direct line):

1. John, JOHN
2. John, Thomas, John, JAMES(1826 Ireland-1907 Canada), Patrick. 
3. William, James, Maurice, JOHN-CHARLES (1861-1925), Mary Ann, Johanna Ellen, Margaret Abigail, Thomas Allen, Martin Everette, Patrick Melvin, Charlotte Theresa. 
4. Annie, Margaret Grace, Melvin James, Bernard John, Kathleen Mary, Bernetta Clara, Ada Christella, CLAYTON-JOHN (1914-1998) and me (1947).

James Vickers
(1826-1907)
My Great grandfather

John-Charles Vickers
(1861-1925)
My Grandfather

Clayton-John Vickers
(1914-1998)
My Father

Bruce F. Vickers
(1947- )
My self

Brian Bruce Francis Vickers
(1978 - )
My son

When I got married for the second time on august 12, 2012. I decided to surprise my wife to be proudly dressed up with my Irish origins.

My self and the Bride

Unfortunatly I had to replace the Laois tartan for the Irish National because of budget and the time factor.

There are very few Irish family tartans, unlike Scotland where there are hundreds. Most people of Irish heritage wear the tartan of the county or province where their families lived versus the Scotish are from their clans.