Rockefeller Great-Grandchildren Want Trust Funds Clarified

Two great-grandchildren of John D. Rockefeller asked a Delaware court Sept. 6 to rule that their trust funds should go to their siblings if they die childless and unmarried.

Trustees representing Daniel D. Gilbert and Alta Mary Gilbert filed separate Chancery Court petitions arguing that their mother, Mary Prentice Gilbert, made a simple oversight when she neglected to specify where the funds should go if they died “without a spouse and without descendants.” Daniel’s trust is worth about $6.2 million, and Alta’s about half that, according to the petitions.

Mary, who established parallel trusts for her six children in 1976, ...