... are they all rumours?

So like any other family on the planet we tend to tell and share stories, but sometimes they turn in to the childs' game of  'Telephone'. What was the truth gets jumbled as the message gets passed from one person to the next. However, even with this I thought I'd a couple funny ones that have come down the line.

In the book, Jordans - Westward from Ireland, there is a short story from a person named Ed Jordan. He was the grandson of William (1782).

"My grandfather was a small man and a fearless rider. I was told he rode in the races when a boy and during the rebellion [1798], when he was 12 or 14, he carried messages for the Loyalists and continued as a dispatch rider till the rebellion was over.

They told me of an estate which the Jordans owned and lost and which I regarded as a pipe dream. They said that when they migrated to CAnda that the Estate was owned by a Lord Livingstone who put a distillery on the estate and insured an income to keep the estate up. I have in my possession  a map of Ireland complied by a monk in the time of William of Normandy. The best map of Ireland I ever saw and showing that the Jordans had the Estate and the Title situated some ten to fifteen miles south of Castle Bar where the Jordans came from and the Estate and Title was given them for the part they took in fighting for William of Normandy during the invasion."

Once I dig more in to our Irish roots I will see if there is any truth to this or not. Either way it seems fairly interesting to me.

Another story that shows the stubborness of the Jordans is in the same book.

"A family legend tells the story of how our Jordans became protestants. They were Roman Catholics and when William Sr's mother was dying the family paid the priest for the last rites. The mother recovered and shortly after appeared to be dying again to they paid the priest a second time. this went on for some time and when she finally died, the priest requested more money or the body would have to lay 'purgatory' [the back shed], instead of the parlour. William refused to pay any more money and called in the protestant preacher who was recruiting new converts. The mother was buried beside her husband but on the other side of the line between the protestant and catholic sections of the cemetary. William's family then became protestant, and being shunned by the rest of the family, decided to come to Canada".

As silly as some of this may sound, you will have to realize that the decendents of William and Lavina number more than 1750 individuals that live all over the world. You may be one of them ; )