Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Discovery of his "Cousin" by DNA research

When one of our James Wanlass's direct male-to-male descendants had a Y-chromosome DNA test performed, we found an exact DNA match with another man in the "Wanless Web DNA Project."
http://www.wanlessweb.org/DNAProject.php

The match was with a James Wanless (1827-1877), who was about 2 years younger than our James, lived in the Edinburgh, Scotland area also, was a baker by trade, married Christiana Parkinson in 1847 in Edinburgh, and had several children.
http://www.wanlessweb.org/TNG/covers/28.php

The father of this "cousin" James Wanless was named John, who was also a baker. The documentation has not yet been found, but his father may have been John Wanless (a baker) who married Margaret Ramsay.
http://www.wanlessweb.org/TNG/getperson.php?personID=I87&tree=27.1

The Ramsay name is important, because our James Wanlass thought a Ramsay family had helped raise him when he was a boy. It is possible that Margaret Ramsay's parents, Thomas Ramsay and Jean Smith, could have helped raise our James Wanlass. They were alive in 1841 and lived near several Wanless families in Dundee, Scotland at that time.
http://www.wanlessweb.org/TNG/getperson.php?personID=I410&tree=27.1

The Ramsay name also shows up among "cousin" James Wanless's (the baker) children, for he named a son "William Ramsay Wanless."
http://www.wanlessweb.org/TNG/getperson.php?personID=I21&tree=28

Thus in this "cousin" we have the convergence of DNA evidence and the "Ramsay" name. We must be on to something here!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have found that many have named their children their maiden name. It is possible that his mother was a Ramsey married to a Wanless. Then her relatives could have raised him.

I have been working a family for my friend with this similar situation. All the children carried her new husbands family name but the parentage of their father was different. After the Parents divorced because of drinking problem and she remarried, the kids chose to use the new spouses name, even though they never had children from that 2nd marriage. All descendants are still using the step father's name from back in the 1700's

Charlene Forsyth

Jay Wanless Southwick said...

Charlene,

In this case, Y-chromosome DNA from our James Wanlass matches the Y-chromosome DNA from a Wanless family in Scotland. That makes us pretty sure his father was a Wanless and that any Ramsay connection would have been either maternal or unrelated by blood.

Wanless

Unknown said...

my grandfather also has ramsey in his middle name he is william ramsey wanless the great grandson of john wanlass dont know whats happened but i sugest they have used some family members names as this is what they have been doing for most of there kids

ruth wanless edinburgh

Jay Wanless Southwick said...

jamohmfc,

Very interesting. I wonder if your William Ramsey Wanless is the same person as the William Ramsey Wanless found at:
http://www.wanlessweb.org/TNG/getperson.php?personID=I21&tree=28

Tell us more about your family line, especially what you know about your John Wanlass.

Contact me at wanless@southwickresearch.com or jwanlesss@gmail.com

ruth said...

my dad was the son of william ramsey wanless his williams dad was james who married christina parkinson i found all this out from wanless web but as for the name ransey most children were named after other family members even ex spouses i have my dads middle name mcphail as does his sibblings

ruth said...

james wanless baker by trade he was my fathers dads, dad who married christina parkinson william ramsey wanless was there son who was my dads, dad but i was just 16 when my dad hugh mcphail wanless passed away i had to research all myself which the wanless web had lots of my ancestors on my dad was born 1909 son of william ramey wanless and elizabeth mccullock