A 71-YEAR-OLD man looks likely to share the proceeds of an art sale worth up to £5 million after he was tracked down as the descendant of a Victorian servant.

Russell Colquhoun Ryan Jr is the great-grandson of James Cullen Colquhoun, a loyal servant in the 19th-century Edinburgh household of the Dundas family, research by The Times and Lorraine Escobar, a California-based genealogist, has shown.

He is in line for the windfall after the owner of arguably the world’s finest collection of native American artefacts offered up to “tens of thousands of pounds” to anybody who could prove that they were directly descended from Mr Colquhoun, who travelled to British Columbia with his great-grandfather in the 1850s. Mr Colquhoun died in penury in San Francisco in 1868.

The offer has been made by Simon Carey, 77, great-grandson of the Rev Robert Dundas, who acquired more than 80 native American artefacts as a clergyman in Canada.

The collection, including several pieces viewed as masterpieces, is expected to fetch up to $10 million (£5 million) when it is auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York this year.

Mr Carey has said that he wants to “honour” Mr Colquhoun’s memory as a loyal family servant by giving money to his descendants.

Speaking last night from his home in Santa Rosa, California, Mr Ryan expressed shock after being tracked down by The Times and informed about Mr Carey’s offer.

He said: “I always knew that there was some Scottish ancestry in the family and I think I was there once as a child. But that was all I knew about it.”

A retired public works labourer, Mr Ryan spent years digging up streets for the water department in Santa Rosa, 50 miles (80km) north of San Francisco. He said: “My wife and I are doing pretty well but we’re not rich. Anybody could always do with a little more money.

“I’m pretty much all that remains of the family. I was thinking about getting some research done into the family history because I have always been intrigued by the Scottish roots, but I’ve never done it. I recall very vaguely my father speaking about his grandfather and how we came to be in America but I can’t remember too much about it.”

Mr Ryan was born in San Francisco on April 19, 1935, to Dr Russell Colquhoun Ryan and his wife, Harriet Estelle Levitt. His father, Dr Ryan, was born in San Francisco on July 31, 1889, to Frank M. Ryan and Elizabeth Colquhoun, the daughter of James Cullen Colquhoun and one of just two children. She was born on June 9, 1862, in British Columbia. Her brother, Robert Dundas Colquhoun, was born in British Columbia on February 9, 1860.

It is thought unlikely that he had children: in a 1920 census, by which time he was aged 60, he was described as single and listed at the same San Francisco address as his sister and brother-in-law.

Mr Ryan, who lives in a small, two-bedroom house in Santa Rosa, was an only child and said that, with the exception of his grown-up daughter, he had no living relatives that he was aware of. Mr Carey said that Mr Ryan’s claim sounded “quite promising” and asked for him to write to him. He said: “There will obviously be a lot of claims and we will investigate each carefully.”

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs