The origin of the surname Tanis has been a source of speculation for a long time. One of the Tanis family members discovered a hamlet in Normandy, France, named Tanis.
Others have suggested that the Tanis surname could refer to the Thames River Valley in Essex, England. In the Netherlands, the prime concentration of the Tanis clan can be found in the coastal village of Ouddorp, which is only a boat ride away from the Thames, they say.
Another tongue-in-cheek explanation places the Tanis origin in Egypt because it has a town named Tanis.
The village of Ouddorp is part of the municipality of Goedereede, which is home to 555 members of the 1,548 member Dutch Tanis clan. Include those residing in adjoining municipalities of the former island of Goeree-Overflakkee and the Tanis clan concentration reaches a subtotal of 668 members. (The clan saw many emigrate to the USA in the late 1800s, but that is another story.)
The earliest birth entries with the surname Tanis date from the mid 1550s, when at least three brothers named Tanis lived in Ouddorp, a village known for dependence on fishing. The other economic activity was agricultural, including growing madder, a root used for extracting dye for treating leather and textiles, including ropes and sails.
Ouddorp’s fishermen, like their contemporaries elsewhere, needed to protect their fishing gear from deterioration and treated the material by submerging it in a ‘taanketel’ (tanning drum) and boiling it in a ‘taanhuisje’ (tanning shed) although these fireplaces could also be in the open air.
Could the Dutch verb ‘tanen’ be relevant in the solution to the Tanis origin question?
Let us look elsewhere in the country. The Vollenhove, Overijssel local historical society periodical Kondschap of June 2010 featured an article titled, ‘Het tanen van scheepstextiel’ (The tanning of seafarer’s textile), which describes the process in detail although there is no direct reference to the madder culture because they used a certain kind of tree bark.
Is there a link with the tanner trade? The genealogical research available focuses too much on the bare data without detailing information on livelihood issues which tell so much more about ancestors.
Although I plan to keep looking for more references that may clarify the origin of the Tanis surname further. With the information received since this post of 2010, I am more open to the idea that the Tanis roots may well be found across the North Sea in England (and perhaps further back to Normandy, see also David R. Tanis’ comments above. Please show genealogical research to confirm this. 2017 modification).
There are two noteworthty points about the Tanis tradition: for centuries there were no firm spelling rules but this surname’s spelling stayed the course while many others in the area did not.
The other point, the given name Jacob, its female equivalent Jacoba  and minor variations such as Jaap and Jack are still being used after nearly 500 years.
As for “tanen”, Wikipedia has a brief article (in Dutch) with an illustration listed at http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanen.
To read more about the Tanis and Ouddorp connection in North America, you may want to read: http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=469
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I have an unusual Dutch last name, Jobsis (with an umlaut over the o). The family seems to have learned it may originally have been German, much to the chagrin of us proud Dutch folk. Thank you for taking the time to blog about genealogy.
The Concise Scots Dictionary (1987 edition) defines TANIST as a term in Celtic law, meaning “the successor to a Celtic king or chief (of Ireland or scotland) elected during his predecessor’s lifetime from within certain degrees of kinship”.
The origin of the word is a Gaelic word “tanaiste”, which translates as : “something secondary to another, or the next heir”.
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When looking at the root of Tanis, I would consider similar sounding surnames. One of these is Kanis. I ran across an explanation of the background of a Nijmegen student, who called himself Canis in the 17th century. It is a latinized surname adapted from the Dutch noun Hond. This does not mean that the surname Kanis, found in the region around Apeldoorn and Kampen is necessarily connected to the Nijmegen case. There may well be a different scenario at play. Back to Tanis. It originated around 1550 when the Romish clergy and their assistants, the costers, still used Latin to update their church records. The Celtic era was much earlier, so I will be a sceptic as far as this solution is concerned.
The Normandy connection might make some sense, since, s early as 1550 some French Hugonot refugees who had escaped the massacre of Vaudois (1545) and the Gestapo-like “Chambre ardente” which was set up in 1549 for the
purpose of rooting out the Protestant heresy, entered England and Holland. The Huguenots were the Orangemen of France and were proud of it.They were staunch Protestants prepared to adhere to the truth though it cost them life itself, and many of them indeed sealed their testimony with their blood, dying a martyr’s death. It was mainly in Dauphiny, Normandy and Brittany that this movement had its chief support, and a large number of its adherents were members and cadets of the old aristocratic families of Nordic race, a good, solid and stolid stock. We also know that the Frisian language is closer to Old Norse than any other language, which makes sense, given the Nordic origins of Norman Hugonots. In fact, the word Norman means “Norseman”. Another main body followed almost a century later and from the middle of the seventeenth century, there was a constant exodus of the very best elements in France – the very flower of the nation, principally from Brittany and Normandy and other parts where the Celto-Nordic and Norse (Norman) elements predominated. The emigres were men of leaming and character and many were expert craftsmen who brought new industries to this land of ours and helped to make Britain great. There were ministers and pastors noblemen, solid merchants and industrious artisans and landed gentry well as husbandmen, gardeners and skilled agricultural workers. In a few months followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1685, fifty thousand families left the shores of France to make their homes in England, the Netherlands and Protestant Germany. Many settled in the East End of London where they set up silk manufactories and hat-making concerns. A goodly number found their way to our American colonies, particularly New Jersey and New York, and a body numbering approximately 200 was settled at the Cape of Good Hope by the States-General of the Netherlands, where it still forms an element in that population. In all, one million Hugonots left France for England, The Netherlands and Germany between the mid-1500s and the mid 1700s.
Thanks for the contribution. Regrettably, you focus far more on Huguenot history in general then specifically on the Tanis surname origin. You do not interact with any Tanis genealogical information to make your case. In fact, there is nothing in the Tanis naming tradition that points to French influences. This one has more validity, although I would want to see the documentation as proof: Jacob Jansz. Tanis, Born ca 1520 in the Thames River Valley, Sussex. Died Ouddorp ca 1570. Adriaan and Jacob are given names still current in my wife’s Tanis lineage. Her grandfather was a Jacob and her uncles were called Jacob (Jaap) and Adriaan.
What interesting geneology! My father was Jaap Tanis and he came to the UK in the ’60’s where I was born and continue to reside. Love the thought that the Tanis family may have originated from the Thames Valley in the 1500’s.
Jacob….we may be related…………in my Family History there is a Jacob Jansz Tanis born in 1520 and died in Ouddorp, Zuid Holland.
Quoted from my original post: “Could the Dutch verb ‘tanen’ be relevant in the solution to the Tanis origin question?” There is something I missed up to now, the surnames Tanis does have variants! What are these? Taan and Taen! In fact, Adriaan Tanis who moved from Ouddorp to Herkelingen is the ancestor of the Taan clan. Now the question is how did this variation originate? Is it connected to his work as a tanner, is it simply a contraction of the name or a misspelling that was never corrected? An error based on dialect prununciation? Or a combination of the above in a very simple 16th century isolated Dutch village society?
The foirst historical mention of Tanis is in Herodotus a greek historian who wrote in the fifth century BC Tanis was one of the seven cities where the Calasyries came from. They were Egyptian horse soldiers. The Romans under Caesar had used Egyptian soldiers in Gaul and it is not too much of a stretch to consider that a wounded or retiring Roman soldier who was a Calasyrie was given a plot of land in Gaul. When William the COnqueror summon his vassals for thebattle at Hastings one of them was Aubrey de Tanis. He was rewarded with an estate near Fyfield in Essex England. The estate was given to the Church by Maude Tanis in the 1200s . Some Tanises ir Tanbues in Engand changed the spelling to Taney. The Tanises in England were related to the Harcourt’s and Beaumonts The family seems to have originally been of Viking origin.. I have not been able to make a paper connection between these Tanises and Jacob Tanis who emigrated to Holland in 1550. At this time Queen Mary was married to the Habsburg Emperor son of Charles V of Spain. Holland at that time was part of the Hapsburg empire and the Emperor spent a lot of time there fighting the French. It is possible that Jacob Tanis was in service to the Spanish King which was the reason he went to the Netherlands. In the Tanis genealogy there are a lot of sheriffs and magistrates, There are two judges and a number of policemen among my Tanis family members. I was able to trace one ancestor, Aleman, back to William of Holland in 1320 and from him back through Charlemagne. William the Conqueror was also an ancestor which is indicative of some familial relation between him and his vassal, Aubrey de Tanis. This is more than mere speculation but falls short of being proven..
Thanks for your input. As a rule, I welcome thinking outside the genealogical box to look for ways to advance research. However, unless there is factual evidence of a connection with the Egyptian town of Tanis I would NOT put any value to that suggestion, which is highly speculative. The English connection has far more currency. Why? The surname Tanis in Ouddorp is not the only one with English roots! When direct links are absent, look for other circumstantial evidence, which in Ouddorp’s case, the Dutch hub for Tanis, is present. It is remarkable in my opinion, that the Tanis clan in the Netherlands has honoured the spelling of the family name while contemporaries were all of the place with theirs, suggesting an awareness of roots and identity?
Hello David,
I also have a direct bloodline to Jacob Jansz Tanis, and the Aleman family. I have been told that the Aleman family is a royal bloodline. I’ve been trying to locate books, and documents to verify this information. Do you know of any sources? Also, I have been unable to locate birth records from Jacob Tanis in England. Do you know where I could locate them.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Karen
Yes, Karen, the Aleman lineage descends from lower nobility on Goeree Overflakkee and links up via higher nobility with Emperor Charlemagne, so we have been told a number of times. There are sources on this in the Dutch language but do not know if anyone has translated those yet. As always, use caution with genealogical information because there are critics as well. We hope that David picks up on your request.
In the Chapel at Dives-sur-Mer in Normandy there is a plaque with a long list of people who owed fealty to William the Conqueror and supported him in the invasion of England by providing ships and troops. There is the name of Auvrai de Tanie among them Auvrai (Aubrey) means to truth and Tanie is the name often seen on maps of Tanis especially in the early maps. In England the name often became Taney to distinguish from the other people named Tanis. There is some genetic evidence, although weak, since many of the Tanis’s in the Netherlands were magistrates, Roger Taney was Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and my cousin and UI were both judges. It appears that William granted Auvrai de Tanis an estate near Fifield, in Essex, England but in the 1200’s our ancestor, Maud Tanis, gave it to the church. After that the name appears to have disappeared in England until 1550 when Jacob Tanis migrated to Holland. He and his wife were drowned in the great flood of 1570 along with several thousand inhabitants of the Island of Goeree/Flakkee. Presumably Jacob was a merchant whose business involved sailing down the Thames and over to Goedereede (Good Harbor in Dutch) which was silted in by the flood.
A tenuous connection with Egypt is found in Herodotus who wrote of the Calisyries, military horsemen in Egypt who came from seven towns one of which was Tanis (Zoan) in the Nile Delta. The Roman connection with Egypt is well known as both Julius Caesar and his cousin, Marc Anthony, had liaisons with Cleopatra. It is not out of the question to believe that Caesar brought some Calisyries to Gaul and upon retiring, either because of old age or wounds, granted him some Gaulish land which became known as Tanis. Of course, there is no documentation of this, but it is an entirely conceivable chain of events.
Let’s not forget that the Kingdom of Tanis in Egypt was settled by Alexander the Great and his legions from Macedonia before building Alexandria. Egypt from that time until the Ottoman Invasion was Greek. Cleopatra was Greek, the daughter of Ptolomy II. Also, there is a Street in Alexandria named Tanis and there are many people still in Alexandria with the surname of Tanis. They are part of a remnant of Alexandrian Greeks, Orthodox Christians, who speak Greek. It is very possible that some of these Greek Tanises fled the Ottoman invasions by ship and wound up in France and Holland.
Thank you for the terrific info! I’m a descendent of one of the Tanis women who immigrated to the United States and already enjoy learning more about this line!
Based on my research it appears that my ancestors are related to the Tanis’ lineage. Trying to confirm with more documentation. Jacob Jansz Tanis married to Jacomiitje Pietersdr married into the Breen family via the Commersz’s ultimately to the Haamstee’s. Any chance this could be?
You may wish to join this discussion group. There are several member who are connected to the Breen and Tanis clan. They may be able to help you connect the dots: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DutchGenealogy
My family is really into genealogy and we believe that our ancestors immigrated from Ouddorp. There is a graveyard around a mile from my house that documents the names of the men through the line from Ouddorp. (Or at least I think, I haven’t visited in around a year.) It’s basically John Martin, Martin John, John Martin… etc. etc…
Hi Albert,
Thank you for sharing what you already know about Tanis. I am French. My mom’s surname is Tanis. We all are from Toulouse, south-west France since 1850. Tanis is very unsual here as I haven’t found people out of my familly named Tanis in the south. The olders like to say we are from Egypt. As Tanis was named by Greek people, and considering it was a long time ago, I don’t consider this option. I guess as Tanis is not a local surname, we don’t originate from here. I know from the olders that the Tanis were mainly shopkeepers. I know we were all protestants.
I am sure we are linked with the Netherlands. Still trying to find this out 🙂
In Meertens (website about Dutch names) it says that Tanis is a patronym. So his father was likely to be named Taan as a first name.
Could that be the case?
If so, can you show evidence of others having been named Taan? What is more certain that there were ‘taan’ ketels and sheds in Ouddorp, since that area produced the ‘mekrap’ root which was used to tan or colour clothing for the fishing industry. In recent times, evidence points to a far more likely solution. Jacob Tanis, who settled in Ouddorp, hailed from across the sea, and came from England. Yes, I work a lot with Meertens and owe much to that site but they are not always right. They do welcome additional info.