The Ransdell Family

For additional information, see the

Mercer County website

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kymercer/

          RANSDELL is an English surname, one of 1400 variations of "Randal," among the favorite names of the Normans at the time of the Conquest.

NOTE:   William Ransdell was my fourth great-grandfather who married Ann (Nancy) Petty and moved from Virginia to Mercer County, Kentucky.  Some researchers believe William is the son of William Ransdell and Mary Chilton; one in particular believed he was the son of John Ransdell of Orange County.  Research is ongoing.  I quote from a posting dated July 2000 on the Ransdell Forum on Genealogy.com by Bob Moore, a noted Ransdell researcher (who unfortunately passed away in 2005):

“William Ransdell, settler in Mercer Co., Ky. was NOT the son of William Ransdell and Mary Chilton of Fauquier Co. Do not rely, for this and other questions, on the research of E. Porter Ransdell, which I found in a little booklet at the library of the Kentucky Historical Society. Some of his claims are impossible. He may have been relying on the work of James L. Kendall of Jeffersonville, Indiana, whose perhaps preliminary manuscript I have seen at the Filson Club in Louisville. E.P. Ransdell, however, did not think in the way a genealogist should and made some serious misinterpretations. Kendall speculated that it was possible that William Ransdell who came to Mercer Co., Ky. was the son of William Ransdell and Mary Chilton of Fauquier Co. E.P. Ransdell apparently took this as a fact. In published form later on, though, Kendall called William the son of John Ransdell, which is much more likely. Also risky in some areas is the published research of Ron Donaldson. As with most of us, he is most capable in the area of most direct interest. See "Thornton of Richmond County, Virginia" by Dr. B. C. Holtzclaw in Historical Southern Families, vol. 12, 1968, published by J.B. Boddie for a well-researched article as it regards the Ransdells of Orange Co., Va., the family of John and his probable son, William of Mercer Co. Dr. Holtzclaw also gives some documentation for the generations of Edward and his children. There is also good research in the typescript of William K. Ransdell at the Kentucky Historical Society library.”

In further correspondence with Bob Moore, he shared with me his belief that William  Ransdell (husband of Nancy Petty) is “very probably” a son of John Ransdell of Orange  Co.,  Va; that John is “almost certain[ly]” a son of Edward Ransdell of Westmoreland Co., VA, and his wife Mary, who “could have been” Mary  Gorham, a ward of the Wharton family of that area, hence the origin of the given name Wharton in the Ransdell family; and finally, that Edward “may well be” the son of the Edward Ransdell who appears in two Maryland documents in 1661 and 1666.