[8][9] His paternal grandparents were Elizabeth Smith (née Richardson) French, a daughter of William Merchant Richardson (a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court), and Benjamin Brown French, who was Clerk of the United States House of Representatives from 1845 to 1847 and was Commissioner of Public Buildings under President Abraham Lincoln.

[1] In 1887, he became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and in 1888, he became treasurer, then secretary and eventually vice-president of the Manhattan Trust Company, retiring in 1900 but staying a director until 1908.

[14] On December 2, 1885, French was married to Pauline LeRoy (1864–1928)[15] at All Saints' Chapel in Newport, Rhode Island by Bishop Henry C.

Before their separation in August 1911, and eventual divorce in March 1913, they were the parents of:[17] In 1914, he remarried to Martha Beeckman (1863–1951) at the home of her sister in Goshen, New York.

[38] Ellen's sister, Virginia Middleton French (1917–2011),[39] would marry William Force Dick, Astor's half-brother, on December 18, 1941, before her later marriage to Philip B.