A persistent tradition holds that William and Jonathan Christian left the Isle of Man for Virginia around 1655, accompanied by the Cottier family of Lezayre. A.W. Moore published the tradition in Manx Worthies, drawing on correspondence from Judge Joseph Christian of Virginia in the 1880s. The Christian surname does appear in the Virginia colonial records from the 1640s onward — a Richard Christian as a headright on the Rappahannock in 1643, a Thomas Christian patenting land on the Chickahominy in 1657, an Anne Christian and a “Jno. Codier” together in a 1658 Potomac patent (the name traditionally read as Cottier). But the specific brothers the tradition names — William and Jonathan — do not appear in the Virginia land patents at all. No ship record, no departure record, and no Manx parish register entry connects any of the colonial Virginia Christians to the Isle of Man. The tradition may preserve a genuine memory. The evidence that would prove it has not been found.