Ratcliffe Family

According to The Mansion's account of how a Russian fighting for the British as a German mercenary during the Revolutionary War became the founder of the Ratliff family in Yoknapatawpha, the name first belonged to a farm family in Virginia. Some time after Nelly Ratcliffe begins secretly feeding Vladimir Kyrilytch, she "brings him out where her folks could see him" (184). Some time after that, her "ma or paw or brothers or whoever it was, maybe jest a neighbor," noticed that she was pregnant, "and so" Nelly and this first V.K. were married, using her last name (184). Their child is the first V.K. Radcliffe. This reference to her "ma or paw or brothers" is all we know about her family.