What's In A Name?

What's in a name? Well, my mother and I were at my late grandmother's condo yesterday sorting through her belongings, since my mom & her sister are getting ready to sell the condo to an interested buyer in the next few weeks. We came across this old trunk in one of the bedrooms and I started asking questions about my grandmother's mother and grandmother. As we were discussing things, she mentioned that my grandmother, Nanny, had left a very valuable textbook manuscript to my aunt as part of her will. I asked my mom what the book was about and she replied that it was about something "boring"...LOL! Although, she did know that it was an extremely valuable handwritten book. She went and located the book and brought it out to show me. It was entitled, "The Life of William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1729-1786)", written by Francis Jordan, Jr. My mom wasn't sure how this book ended up in the family or how the last name of the author, Jordan, was connected to William Henry. My grandmother's maiden name was Jordan. As my mom carefully opened up this book, I was truly amazed at the handwriting of every single page! It was written in a brownish-colored ink in an extremely beautiful script...like something you would expect to see on a historic document such as The Declaration of Independence. There were even a few hand-drawn sketches of a steamboat boiler. Of course, without much technology back then, all books had to be written by hand. I was in awe of how perfect each sentence was written and how small the handwriting was, so that many sentences fit on each page. You can even see the small embossing/seal at the top corner of each page in the book just below.


Last night, I decided to do some more research to see if I could find out exactly who William Henry was and how my grandmother might be related to him. I was absolutely astonished at what I found out through Google! It turns out that William Henry is the great-great grandfather of Francis Jordan, Jr. (1843-1911). Who was William Henry? Apparently, he was the inventor of the steamboat and a military officer, among other things! He was a direct descendant of Patrick Henry, who is best known for the famous historical words, "Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death". I felt like I was in the movie, "National Treasure", having found some long, lost, extremely valuable, historical artifact!



Francis Jordan, Jr. is the great, great (and possibly even more greats) grandfather of my late grandmother, Nancy Jordan! Mr. Jordan was a member and Vice-President of the American Philosophical Society in the 1800's and once a member of the Union Artillery Company. He was apparently an author of a series of books. His last literary work was the biography of his great, great-grandfather, William Henry. The book that my grandmother has passed on to our family is the first and only original manuscript of that book! I even found an online version of the actual type-written text of this book, word for word!

The penmanship is remarkable and makes you feel as if you are standing among a room full of our forefathers. I am just fascinated by the whole discovery and to think that it is actually a part of our lineage makes it that much more special to me!


The last several pages of this original manuscript contain a family tree of William Henry's descendants that once lived and that were still alive at the time this book was written, in 1860. I know that you can easily research your own family's ancestors online these days and create your family tree based on all kinds of information dating back many years. I just thought that this kind of research was too tedious and time-consuming, so I never really got involved in anything of that nature. But, this whole discovery makes me so intrigued now! I can't help but wonder how many others in this country have yet to discover their own family trees from years ago and have yet to put together the pieces of the giant puzzle that encompasses our nation's earliest years? So, I'd like to invite anyone reading this post to do some research of your own online and share with us what you may find out about your own family's heritage and lineage! I am sure that in one way or another we are all connected in some way, when you date things back to those early days of the 1700's and 1800's! Let me hear your stories, if you know any!!! You might be more surprised than you think at what you may find out!