I am looking for a male descendant from the Whitaker (includes any of the spelling variants) families that lived in Dewsbury in the 17th century. Does anybody know of any descendants? The exact relationships are hard to sort out because so many of them are called Thomas and the few wills only help with some of the lines. The reason is that I am others think that the most likely ancestry for the Mark Whitaker who turns up in Baltimore is that he is the son of Thomas Whitaker of Thornhill. My Whitaker ancestors came from very near Dewsbury and there is DNA evidence that suggests a common ancestor between my lot and the descendants of Mark Whitaker of Baltimore. What I and my fellow researchers in the US would now like is an undoubted cousin of Mark of Thornhill who could be tested. Christopher Richards