Robert Frank Emanuel was a descendant of William Patrick Stone and his wife Amanda Susan (Ragan) Stone. Robert Emanuel’s mother, Kate Holmes (Stone) Emanuel, was a daughter of William and Amanda Stone’s son James Armstrong Stone.

William Patrick Stone was born in about 1814, likely in Tennessee or possibly in Virginia. His parents have not been identified. Amanda Susan Ragan was born on 9 Mar 1822 in Mississippi. William P. Stone and Amanda Susan Ragan married on 6 Nov 1838 in Hinds County, Mississippi. By Oct 1846, the Stone family was living on Stonington Plantation near Delta in Madison Parish, Louisiana.

William P. Stone died on 6 Dec 1855 at age 41 years. Following his death, his wife established the Brokenburn Plantation in Carroll Parish of Louisiana. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the oldest daughter of William and Amanda Stone, Sarah Katherine “Kate” Stone, began a journal that would chronicle her experiences through the war and into reconstruction. The journal, as edited by John Q. Anderson, is published as Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone 1861-1868.

Following the Civil War, James Armstrong Stone married Margaret Scott. Their youngest daughter, Kate Holmes Stone, was born on 19 Jan 1882 in Madison Parish, Louisiana. By Dec 1889, the family migrated to Iowa Park in Wichita County, Texas where Kate Holmes Stone met Frank L. Emanuel. The couple married on 29 Dec 1901 at Wichita Falls, Texas.