Legally, he is the son and heir of Ludovic Ransom , Eighth Earl of Ellesmere , who was his mother's husband at the time of his birth. Since the age of six, William has been raised by Lord John Grey , his legal guardian and husband of Geneva's younger sister, Isobel Dunsany. On the day of William Ransom's birth, he lost not only his mother, Geneva Dunsany , but also his father, the Earl of Ellesmere , whose official cause of death was 'misadventure'.
Geneva was a young lady whose family arranged her marriage to the much older earl, and she died from childbirth complications soon after William was born. As a result of their dual passing, William was raised by his mother's sister, Isobel , and her husband, Lord John Grey. He referred to his aunt and her husband as his step-mother and step-father, respectively. Unbeknownst to Willie, his birth father was not the elderly Earl of Ellesmere at all, but Jamie Fraser. Geneva had blackmailed Jamie, who was serving his parole as a groom for the Dunsanys at the time, into sharing her bed and taking her virginity before she was to wed to Ellesmere.
Their one-night stand resulted in her pregnancy with William. Upon Geneva's death, the old earl demanded that the child be handed over to his keeping and informed Geneva's father, Lord Dunsany, that he knew the child was not his blood, but the result of cuckoldry.
The two men were arguing when Jamie , summoned to stand by as intercessor to the quarrel, entered the room, pistol in hand. When Ellesmere threatened to throw the newborn William out of the window, Jamie shot Ellesmere and rescued William, and the earl soon died of his injury.
The Dunsanys, seeking to keep the truth of this scandalous interlude under wraps, did not accuse Jamie at the coroner's court, where it was determined that the old earl's distress over his wife's death caused his own sudden demise, and the court concluded that Ellesmere met his death "by misadventure".
