Younger sons!

Large families were ideal, given the high mortality rate. Male heirs were essential for preserving the baronetcy (purchased 1665) so younger sons were important. William Ramsay (right) was born about 1658, as younger brother to John, the second Baronet.

His nephew Andrew (left) inherited the baronetcy from his older brother, also John, when he died in 1717.  George Ramsay, advocate, would have inherited but he had died earlier. The surviving portraits show a strong family resemblance, especially their noses!

It’s difficult to establish biographies for younger children. The girls marry and are subsumed into their husbands’ family histories. The boys enter professions, but the records are not complete. William was a Writer to the Signet and married Mr Hayes’s daughter in Edinburgh on 11 Jan 1690, at 8pm, in the Hayes home. The new couple was dead 3 months later; William’s portrait appears to have been preserved by his father.