Tanche and Tank (other spellings are Tanch, Tanke, Tanck, and Tancke) is a Dano-Norwegian and from Haderslev originating family. The tradition says that the family was ennobled by Charles IV of the Holy Roman Empire (reign: 1346–78). A member of the family, Martin Tanche, got in 1643 his noble status confirmed by the King of Denmark and Norway.
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Martin Tanche, since 1638 having been one of King Christian IV's officials, was on 23 October 1643 confirmed as a member of the Danish and the Norwegian nobility,[2] and he received as well a coat of arms.
Martin Tanche was the Danish Resident in the Hague.[3] He was among the noblemen who participated at the 1660 meeting of the estates (Danish: stændermøde) in Copenhagen. At the end of his life, Tanche was Chamber Councillor[4] for the Prince-elector of Saxony.
After having been the secretary of Christopher Knudsen Urne to Asmark, the Governor-general of Norway, Hans Carstensen Tanche was appointed as the district stipendiary magistrate (Norwegian: sorenskriver) of Østerdalen and Solør. His son Niels Hansen Tanche moved to Northern Norway.
Niels Carstensen Tanche, who was Hans Carstensen Tanche's brother, began as a merchant in Halden. Among his descendants are several noble families, e.g. Anker and the Counts of Wedel-Jarlsberg. His son was Carsten Tank the older, whose grandchildren among others were Carsten Tank the younger, who married (1) Bertha Sophie Leth and (2) Catharine von Cappelen, and Anne Catharine Tank, who married Erik Ancher, together with whom she had the sons Peter Anker, a diplomat and a colonialist, and Carsten Tank Anker, a government minister and one of the so-called ‘Fathers of the Constitution’. Norway's last count, Count Peder Anker of Wedel-Jarlsberg, was his descendant.
The Eastern Norwegian branch possessed, as a part of their big estate, the manor Rød.
The American Tanks descend from Niels Otto Tank, the son of Carsten Tank and Catharine née von Cappelen. Otto Tank was a missionary who immigrated to Green Bay in Wisconsin.
Tanche was and is the name variant used in Denmark and Northern Norway. It is called Tank in Eastern Norway.
Martin Tanche's coat of arms of 1643 shows in the first and the second field the castle and the lion paw which are found in other family members' coats of arms, among others the coat of arms of Otto Tanck in Lübeck. The third field shows what allegedly is the family's original arms: a red, double-tailed lion rampant on a yellow background. The same lion is, bearing a noble coronet, also the crest.
Carsten Tanche in Haderslev was in 1605, after his death, connected with a coat of arms which divided per pale shows the castle and the lion paw. These arms as well as his wife Anna's arms appear on two chandeliers in the city's church, which in addition bear the following inscription:
CARSTEN TANCHE ANNA TANCHE ERBEN HABEN DIESE KRONEN GODT ZOEM EHREN DER KIRCHE ZUM ZIERATH HERRICHTEN LASSEN