John Rutherford is discussed by Philip José Farmer in Tarzan Alive. His parents were the 12th Baron Tennington and Serena Blakeney, through whom can be traced descent from witnesses to the Wold Newton Meteorite strike. John, a Scot, married Dorothy Swinton, herself a member of a centuries-old Scottish family. Farmer identifies them as the parents of Professor Challenger, and also of a daughter, Melissa, mother of Monk Mayfair.
This geneaology conflicts with the earlier work of William S. Baring-Gould in Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, in which Challenger's mother is a member of the Holmes family.