William Riley Jones (1838-1863) was born in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. At the time of the 1860 Federal Census, Jones was working as a farmer in the Fayette County household of his parents, John Sidney Jones (1811-1873) (b. in Tennessee) and Nancy Dodson Jones (1818-1892) (b. in Alabama). On January 17, 1861 William R. Jones married Mary Francis Parker (1837-1930), and the couple had one son, James William Riley Jones (1861-1931), born in Fayette County on December 23, 1861. William R. Jones enlisted in Co. G, 41st Alabama Infantry in April 3, 1862. He was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 20, 1863.