A Conversation on Names, Families, and the Mists of History
It began with a rereading of Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest, twenty years after the first encounter. What struck me this time was not Vidal’s wit or his politics, but the astonishing degree to which he was intertwined with the Kennedy, Bouvier, and Auchincloss families. Reading the memoir felt less like reading history and more like wandering through an enormous family reunion in which senators, presidents, socialites, writers, and diplomats all appeared as cousins, step-cousins, schoolmates, and in-laws.
Perhaps that recognition came naturally because genealogy has conditioned me to think that way. My full birth name is Janet Jamieson Durward White. When you are named by a Scot, it is a very thorough trip through family tradition. The first Janet Jamieson I have located appears in the early eighteenth century. The name has traveled across generations like an heirloom, carried forward long after the original woman herself disappeared into history. To most people, a name is an identifier. To a genealogist, it is a breadcrumb trail.
The Durwards are a sept of Clan Gordon and the Gordons in my line came through my grandmother’s Hunter-Gordon-Durward branch. David Gordon and Alexander Gordon are known figures in the family story, but beyond them the trail becomes increasingly tangled. My most frustrating brick wall lies in a churchyard at Birse, Scotland. Several Durwards are buried there. Death records exist, but there is no clear indication of how the individuals are related. Birth records are missing or absent. The evidence suggests they may have moved into the area from farther west, but nothing survives to prove the connection. Adding to the challenge is the Durward surname itself.
Farther west appears a concentration of families using the spelling Dorward. Between those western settlements and Birse lies a region where both spellings appear. Whether these represent separate branches, changing local pronunciations, clerical variations, or all three at once remains uncertain.
At some point every genealogist encounters a mystery that refuses to yield. The temptation is to force a conclusion. The wiser course is to acknowledge uncertainty and leave the question open for future evidence.
Perhaps the Gordons came from the west. Perhaps the Dorwards and Durwards are one continuous family. Perhaps the records that would answer the question vanished centuries ago. History is not obligated to preserve itself for our convenience. Yet there is another perspective.
The motto of Clan Gordon is Bydand.
Sometimes rendered as “Bide And,” it is generally understood to mean: Abide. Remain steadfast. Hold fast. Keep going.
Unlike more dramatic clan mottos celebrating victory and conquest, Bydand possesses a quiet stubbornness. Stay.
Persist. Do not surrender. It is an unexpectedly appropriate motto for genealogy.
Most family historians spend less time discovering ancestors than enduring missing records, faded gravestones, illegible handwriting, contradictory census returns, and the certainty that at least one ancestor spent a lifetime hiding from future researchers.
The Durwards of Birse may never be fully explained. Or perhaps somewhere in an uncatalogued box in Aberdeenshire sits a kirk session minute, a land transfer, a tax roll, a forgotten will, or a scrap of correspondence waiting patiently to reveal the answer. The archives have a habit of rewarding persistence long after common sense has advised surrender.
And so, for now, the conclusion remains simple:
Bydand.
Continue.
Keep looking.
Leave good notes.
Preserve the evidence.
One day a descendant may unpack a battered box of papers, charts, photographs, notebooks, letters, and printed conversations. The contents will spill into their lap like Long John Silver’s treasure. They will discover not merely names and dates, but stories. And perhaps, somewhere among the pages, they will find the Durwards of Birse waiting patiently for another generation to continue the search.
Bydand.
