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John Robert Willis was born on February 14, 1825, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He was a teacher, naturalist, and first Nova Scotian conchologist. He moved to Halifax as a child and was educated at the National School. In 1846, he became its successful teacher and later principal. Willis was appointed superintendent of the new Industrial School in Halifax in 1864, and in 1865, he became secretary to the new Board of School Commissioners for the City of Halifax, a position he held until his retirement in 1875. He collected and classified shells, insects, and birds. In 1854, he exhibited his shells at the Nova Scotia Industrial Exhibition and won first prize. He sent exhibits of Mollusca and pearls to the Dublin Exhibition in 1864. He donated shell collections to local colleges, the British Museum, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian Institution. In recognition of his work, he was elected a corresponding member of the Liverpool Natural History and Microscopical Society in 1862, of the Boston Society of Natural History in 1863, and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1866. Willis was one of the founders of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science in 1862 and worked for the establishment of a provincial museum.

In 1847, he married Mary Ann Artz (–1865) and in 1865, he remarried Eliza Jane Moseley (1846–1930). He died on March 31, 1876, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Helen Willis was born in Ontario in 1893. She graduated from McGill University with a B.A. in 1914 and a M.A. in 1917. Helen taught briefly in Montreal but spent most of her adult life as a missionary in China.

Dorothy Willis was born in Ontario. She graduated with a B.A. from McGill University in 1909.

The Willis is composed of two sisters, Dorothy Willis and Helen Willis.

William Crawford Williamson was born on November 24, 1816, in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England.

He was an English physician, naturalist, paleobotanist, and author. He studied medicine at University College, London, and during his studies, he acted as curator of the Natural History Society's museum at Manchester. After his graduation in 1841, he returned to Manchester to practise his profession. In 1851, he became Professor of Natural History at newly founded Owens College in Manchester and retained the chair of botany until 1892. Williamson was also a successful popular lecturer, especially for the Gilchrist Trust. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854, winning its Royal Medal in 1874 and delivering the Bakerian Lecture in 1877. He received an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1883 and the Wollaston medal of the Geological Society in 1890. He published numerous articles and papers on paleobotany.

In 1842, he married Sophia Wood (1818–1872), and in 1874, he remarried Ann Copley Heaton (1842–). He died on June 23, 1895, in Clapham, London, England.

Sophia Williamson was the daughter of William Crawford Williamson and his first wife, Sophia Wood.

Solicitor and anthropologist Robert Williamson was born into the Lancashire family of British geologist Professor Willliam Crawford Williamson. Privately schooled, he continued his education at Owen College, where he graduated in engineering, then studied law at Clements Inn where he was “prizeman” at his final exams in 1897. His wife, Emily, whom he married in 1882, was a co-founder of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Law occupied him for the next decades as a solicitor in Manchester from 1879 to 1908. During this time he was president of the Manchester Law Society and a member of the London Law Society (1902), and from 1903 to 1910, a member of the court of governors of Victoria University of Manchester. He had been friends since 1908 with the anthropologist and zoologist Alfred Haddon and, abruptly changing career directions, turned to the field of anthropology at age 54. In 1910 he participated in the Cambridge expedition that Haddon led to the Torres Strait and British New Guinea. He eventually wrote six books on New Guinea and Polynesia .He was honorary treasurer of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1912 to 1921 and vice-president of the institute from 1925 to 1927. Owens College bestowed on him an honorary M.Sc. in 1913. His major work was three volumes on The Social and Political Systems of Central Polynesia, the last volume of which was published posthumously.