FIRST GENERATIONWilliam Yates (Yeats) (1) died between 1785 and 1787. It appears that William Yates (Yeats) is the progenitor of the Yates clan in colonial America. At least the clan that we are related to. Since he apparently arrived from England sometime in the early 18th century he is probably the ancestor of most of the more than 4 million Yates’s that can trace their heritage to colonial days. It also appears that he may have changed his name to Yates from Yeats after arrival in America. It was customary to do so in a lot of cases especially if your arrival portage was anywhere in Maryland in the early to mid 18th century. This is because if you were Catholic at that time and you arrived in Maryland then the Protestants would give you a really hard time. There were a lot of feudal wars between the two factions during that time. The King of England supported the Protestants in the wars. Therefore a lot of new immigrants would change there spelling to reflect a Protestant background. It has not been proven conclusively however that he did change his name or was even catholic since his children all lived and grew up in Virginia, which was mostly protestant at the time. It is interesting to note that he was married in a Catholic church in Baltimore. Maybe he was loyal to the King and supported the protestants or Maybe he went to Virginia with the Catholics that were kicked out of Maryland and just stayed there when the Catholics went back later on. It is a dilemma anyway you look at it. His descendents did move to Kentucky about the time the Maryland Catholics arrived here. My guess is he was Catholic and changed his name to Yates which is a Protestant name in England then migrated to Virginia with his family to escape the Protestants. He was married to Ann Thornburgh (daughter of John
Thornburgh) on 8 Sep 1744 in St. James Parish, Baltimore, Md.
William Yates (Yeats) and Ann Thornburgh had the following children: |
+2 i.