Searching for Descendants of Jordan

Can you give us a clue

We get a number of historical enquiries at BrentfordTW8.com and the normal solution is to pass it over to our wonderful team of Brentford historians who solve it fairly promptly. This one needs a bit more help.

We've had a request from Ruud Verhagen, who works for a museum in Geffen, technically part of Belgium but has been in the Netherlands until 1993.

In October 1944 the village of Geffenwas liberated by the British Army. In the night of 10/11 October Geffen was attacked by the Germans. Despite the superiority of the German numbers, the English defenders were able to maintain.

A soldier who lived in Brentford played a heroic part. He was awarded for a Military Medal! His name was Frederick George Jordan. The webpage for 259 Battery, 65th Anti Tank Regiment, simply says "Attack put in on Geffen but beaten off" for that night.

 The Tower Museum is now making an exhibition of WW II. In that exposition they would like to show information and photographs of all the various soldiers involved in the defense of Geffen.

One Rifleman, Frederick George Jordan, was awarded a Military Medal for his part in this and came from Brentford. If anyone can help track down his family the Museum would like to invite them for a meeting in connection with a special remembrance day.

Some genealogical research provides the following information:

Frederick G Jordan was born in Brentford registration district in the last quarter of 1916. Someone with the same name, probably the same man, was married to Charlotte A Crawford in the same area in 1937, and they had children Colin (born Brentford 1939), Barbara A (born Uxbridge 1941) and Raymond G (born Uxbridge 1945): his death recorded in 1978 in Hounslow gives a date of birth of 7th November 1916.

If anyone can offer helpful suggestions as to this family and indeed where to look, please contact editor@brentfordtw8.com who will forward on such information. 

March 21, 2012