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his portion of our website is devoted to the history of all the Riley families in America. Although we may not be blood related, we all do have a common bond in the desire to preserve our family heritage.The main purpose of the Family Club is to gather and preserve our Riley family history -- of ALL the Riley families who settled in America. We are trying to create a major collection of copies of public documents and personal family records to preserve in the Riley Family National Library. The Riley - Reily - Riely - O'Reily - O'Reilly and many other variant spellings are common in Ireland, Northern Ireland and England so obviously, we are not all blood-related.
You are urged to make copies of Riley family records and take time to write down information on your direct family ancestry as far back as you know and send these records and information to preserve in the Family Library.
If you have a website on Riley family history, let us know and we will be glad to provide a link to your site.
One of our most important projects is to gather cemetery records on all our Riley families and preserve this information in our Riley Family National Library. We urge you to take part in this goal.
If you came directly to this page, be sure and visit the Riley Family Club's HOME page, the family the family QUERIES section, the "FAMOUS RILEYS" section (governor, Congressmen, judge, college president, professor, sheriff, mayor, movies and more), the Riley Family NEWSLETTER (for news, obituaries, births, etc. about your kinfolk) and our other pages. Click on "HOME" at the bottom of this page.
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he first of what we hope will be many books about the Riley families can now be ordered from the Family Club.The first one is on our Historian's own family, the John Riley Senior family of North Carolina, Darlington District, SC and Dale County, Alabama. John Sr. was born about 1762 in North Carolina. After he married, he moved to old Darlington District, SC and later joined a mass migration from there to the frontier of Dale County, AL. where he died about 1846 at age 84. It has information on John's parents and grandparents back to the early 1700's and on his brothers and sisters and their descendants.
The book also gives equal treatment to John's brother Edward Riley Jr. who left Orange County, NC and settled in Orange County, Indiana and others who stayed in North Carolina. The Riley family of Orange County, North Carolina spread to Alabama, Indiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Florida and today, all over the United States.
The book also relates the history of his wife Mary (1770-1858) and her ancestors -- back six generations to the 1500's in England. It reveals several families that all these Rileys are descended from.
John and Mary are the ancestors of the vast majority of Rileys from Southeast Alabama (the Wiregrass area) of Dale County, Henry County, Houston County, Geneva County and adjoining areas of Panhandle Florida and Southwest Georgia.
Edward and Elizabeth are the ancestors of a very large number of Riley kin, almost all of whom left Indiana and settled in Arkansas in the 1820s. Many later moved on to Texas and then Oklahoma. Today, their descendants are scattered all over the nation.
Many of their kin remained in Orange County and spread to surrounding areas of North Carolina, including Durham, Person, Alamance and several other surrounding counties. Their descendants too, have spread from there to all over the nation.
The book lists family records for many states. It includes such items as the wills of Mary's father and grandfather, deeds and marriage records on the family.
The book also includes information on descendants of John's great grandparents. The report has not been completed as yet but already has 17,800 descendants of this Riley family 'branch', along with several hundred more relatives who have not been 'linked' as yet.
This book will help correct some mis-information now on the Internet. As of April, 2004, you can find more than a dozen different Web files all of which state that the parents of Edward Riley were John "Reilly" and Mary Hillhouse. They fail to take into account that Mary Hillhouse and her husband lived in Philadelphis, Pennsylvania and at least some of their children were born there, including one in 1752. So far, no close connection between these two 'branches' has been discovered.
Cost: $50
We also have two other books being prepared: one on Riley Family Marriage Records and another on Riley Family Cemetery Records. Work won't resume on these until the above book is completed (soon).
Collection of Riley marriage records from states all over the nation. They are divided by state and county.
Cemetery records -- tombstone inscriptions and burial records -- from states all over the United States.
All books are loose-leaf and bound in notebooks for lower cost. Make your check payable to the Riley Family Club. Cost of each book is $50.
Please add $4 postage for each book.
This section contains basic information that we hope might help you learn more about your ancestors. We will add and update info on a regular basis. Only the sections with highlighted words are open as yet.
to Riley Family Home page17 Jun 1998
