How Is J.D. Vance Related To The Hatfields From The Infamous Hatfield & McCoy Feud?

I know I’m a bit late to the party but last night I started listening to (I hate when people say they’re “reading” an audiobook…) Hillbilly Elegy and there was a detail early on that really caught my ear because quite honestly it ties one of the most important people currently in the world to one of the most infamous family feuds of all-time.

Hillbilly Elegy was written by J.D. Vance, who some first knew as a marine journalist, venture capitalist, or author, but whom most now know as Vice President of the United States under Donald Trump. This memoir, released when he was just 31 years old in 2016, was a cultural phenomena of sorts, eventually being turned into a movie in 2020 after topping The New York Times Best Seller twice (August 2016 and January 2017) and receiving high praise from numerous media outlets. It has been described as one of the most apt descriptions of the cultural changes happening in working class communities throughout the country that lead to the rise of right-wing populist and the improbable election of Donald Trump in 2016. Of course, opponents of Vance have called the book a mass generalization, “poverty porn,” and have accused him of not really “living” the poor Appalachian experience.

Vance describes his upbringing in ruthless detail, sparing no tale of alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, and hopelessness, parts of each that are found in nearly everyone close to him, especially in his immediate family. It also, at times controversially, focused on welfare recipients and how many members of the working poor/working class saw those on the take as a symptom of larger issues that plagued the “hillbilly lifestyle”.

But this is not a blog to discuss the pros and cons of this book (especially since I’m only 4+ chapters in at the moment) rather to discuss a few lines early on in the book that he seemed to breeze passed but that immediately grabbed my attention: His family’s connection to “hillbilly royalty”, the infamous Hatfield family.

The Hatfields & The McCoys

In Chapter 2, Vance is giving a lineage of sorts that lead to his family being settled in Jackson, Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio. While there’s plenty of details on a number of people, it was an ancestor on his grandfather’s side, Jim Vance, that caught my ear.

Vance wrote:

“Papaw’s distant cousin—also Jim Vance—married into the Hatfield family and joined a group of former Confederate soldiers and sympathizers called the Wildcats. When Cousin Jim murdered former Union soldier Asa Harmon McCoy, he kicked off one of the most famous family feuds in American history.”

This was the extent of what Vance wrote, but let’s pause on that for a second.

His grandfather’s cousin, albeit it distant, is the person responsible for kicking off the generations long, violent family feud between the Hatfields and McCoys? That’s crazy!

Naturally this caused a few people to roll their eyes, especially since written details of this connection are sparce, but still, given the interconnections of families in that region, and how quickly family lines expand over time, it’s certainly plausible and Vance spoke about speaking with various family members to make sure the story was as accurate as their collective memory could be.

I choose to believe the connection is real. While his cleaned up appearance of today may make the “hill people” ties seem a bit embellished, go look at some pictures of young J.D. and the believability that he shares some blood with the person who’s actions kicked off a line of events that claimed the lives of 12 to 20 people and had two families feuding from 1863 to 1891, though they didn’t declare an official peace between the clans until 2003 during a ceremony in Pikeville, Kentucky. The governors of Kentucky and West Virginia declared June 14th Hatfield and McCoy Reconciliation Day.

Though Vance is a Yale educated lawyer turned venture capitalist that now clearly belongs to a higher social tier, it sure is nice to have an Appalachian man in the White House.

Here’s a history of the Hatfields and McCoys:

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