Family of Lisanby Nance -- and whence the name?

A Crouch Family Heritage Association Family Tree page, Nance family line
Text excerpted from Dave Nance's Definitive Nance Genealogy Clearinghouse

LISANBY NANCE, born about 1801 in VA to Reuben and Nancy (Brown) Nance,
is the earliest "Lisanby/Lessonby/etc" Nance I have located. He moved to
Trigg Co KY, and married(1) Onie Sims, with whom he had:
| Jane Nance b June, 1827 Trigg Co KY, d 7/29/1851, 10/21/1848 m J.W. Hayes (b. 1824)
Lisanby Nance m.(2) Mary with whom he had the second Nance to bear this name:
| LISANBY NANCE JR.(b.1839), as well as
| Peyton C. NANCE (b. 1846),
| Reuben L. NANCE (b.1848 -- ... middle name Lisanby?), and
| Harriet NANCE (b. 1849).

Where did LISANBY Nance get his name? ... I have not found a definitive answer -- but I have turned up a tantalizing set of clues. The given name "Lisanby" (or "Lessonby", or some other variant) is not merely unusual -- it is extremely rare. In extensive searching through various databases, genealogical and otherwise, I have found only a
handful of occurrences of "Lisanby" as a surname, and I have never found
occurrences of it as a given name -- except in the Nance family.
Contact dsowards@usasn.com for info on surname Lisonbee / Lasenby / Lisenby / Lisanby / Lisenby

The name appeared again in WILLIAM LESSONBY NANCE, born 25 Dec 1844 to
REUBEN SAUNDERS NANCE (born 28 May 1808 to Reuben and Nancy (Brown)
Nance), the younger brother of LISANBY NANCE. William Lessonby Nance was
presumably named for his uncle and cousin.

Finally, an entry in the 1850 Tennessee census reflects a STEPHEN NANCE
living in Stewart Co Tennessee, age 55 and thus born about 1795, whose
household included a 25-year old person with the name rendered as
LESSON. The elder LISANBY NANCE and his brother REUBEN SAUNDERS NANCE
had an older brother, STEPHEN NANCE, born to Reuben and Nancy (Brown)
Nance on 11 June 1793. It seems not unlikely to me, that this is that
Stephen, with a son who he named LESSON(BY) after his brother.

But where did this name come from? That is a mystery -- but there are
some clues. In the databases I searched in, I found a "Lisonbee" born in
1951 in Salt Lake City, and a "Lisonbee" starting a family in1847 in
"Winter Quarters", Nebraska -- the staging area of the Mormons on their
way west. Evidently, one member of the Lisanby family had converted and
went west with the Saints. The Utah Lisonbee is probably a descendant.

But where were the rest of the Lisanbys? The clue I found was records of
a "Dynasty" of "legal Lisanbys", in Caldwell Co, KY. -- Fred, J. Gordon,
Alvin, C. A., and R. W. Lisanby were all attorneys, practicing in that
area Kentucky from the 1940's into the 1970's. There was also a trace of
a Howard Lisanby whose land in Caldwell Co KY had been owned by his
father in 1956, as well as a couple of court cases from Kentucky
involving Lisanbys from the 1920's and 1930's.

What is fascinating here, is that Caldwell Co KY is immediately to the
north of Trigg Co KY -- which is where Lisanby Nance Sr. lived. Stewart
Co TN, where Stephen and Lesson Nance lived in 1850, is immediately to
the south of Trigg Co KY. So did the "Lisanby" name get attached to the
Nances in that area? It doesn't appear so -- since the earliest
"Lisanby" was born in 1801, in Virginia. What is more likely, is that
the Lisanbys were in Virginia, and that they went to the Trigg Co KY
area with the Nance (and probably other familes).

Sources: 1850 Census of Trigg Co KY; History of Trigg County, Historical
and Biographical, ed. W.H. Perrin, F.A. Battey Pub. Co., Chicago, 1884.
p. 238; "Henry Co. VA Will Abstracts", Lela C. Adams (Southern
Historical Press, 1985); "1850 TN Census, Vol. 5 (Murph-Rudd)", B. Sistler (1975)
Contact dsowards@usasn.com for info on surname Lisonbee / Lasenby / Lisenby / Lisanby / Lisenby

Definitive Nance Genealogy Clearinghouse

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