Riley - Roberts Family Connection

I received an email with really interesting news recently.    It is hard to follow exactly so I have drawn a family tree so you can see the connection:


Dear Lynne: We were in contact with one another at the end of August about Ezra and Grace Riley. I followed up a link from my Uncle Max (James Maxwell Gratton) to King Riley Bruggemann Cork Jewitt Tucker White yesterday and discovered that his mother was Mary Riley, the daughter of Ezra Riley and Jane Roberts. As I explained previously, Jane's youngest sister, Ann, married Alexander John Elder and their daughter, Annie (1893-1927), married my grandfather, John Rothwell (1869-1960), in 1893. Now comes the interesting bit. John and Annie had 4 children, Florence (1895-1978), Anne (1897-about 1993), John Alexander (1899-1975) and Alfred (1908-2010). Anne Rothwell worked as a nurse during WW1 and after the war qualified as a doctor. While she was studying, she met James Maxwell Gratton, who, like his father, became a Wesleyan Methodist minister. Anne and Max went to Hankow, China, as missionaries, and married in 1925 in Japan (because there were disturbances in China at the time). They left China with their 3 children in 1939 after the outbreak of WW2. Max went back on his own in 1946 and left in 1948 just before the communists took over.Your tree also mentions that his sister, Ruth Grace Gratton (1893-1932), left her estate to John (presumably my father, John Alexander) and his younger brother, Alfred Rothwell. Why she left it to them and not for instance to her nephews and nieces is not explained.
Kind regards David

So, two Second Cousins found each other and married.  Thank you David for making this connection.

Stacey Gratton Part 2

I was looking again at the 1930 census for Stacey Gratton and family.  Actually, it lists Richard Gratton as a stepson rather than his son.  Richard was using the Gratton name so I don't know if it was for convenience or if Stacey adopted him.  There is also a difference between the 1920 and 1930 census regarding his year of immigration.  The 1920 census shows 1910 (he would have been 19) and the 1930 census shows 1914.
Richard was born in 1915 and his given name was Richard Hitchcock.  His mother was May S.  Hitchcock.  Richard died in 1990 in San Francisco. Richard is listed in one record as Dr. Richard Gratton.  I looked for Richard's family and discovered he had a son, Richard Gratton.  I was really hoping to find a living Gratton but he died at age 54 in 2001.
Stacey other son was Donald B.  He born in 1922 in Alameda County, California and died there in 1984.

I would love to find a living relative of Mary Riley.  Her only daughter died at age 39 and had never married.  There another brother, James Maxwell Gratton.  He went to "Public" school in England and I wonder if Ezra helped pay that bill.  It seems like a luxury for a Methodist Minister to send his son to such a school (Kingswood School).