Genealogy Chat

Leaving this blank so I can format my question.

I feel as if I've come to a brick wall whilst researching one particular line of my family and the reason is that these particular ancestors seemed to move from place to place quite a lot and it's becoming increasingly difficult trying to keep track of their movements. Here's what I know: James YATES and his wife Eliza had a daughter, Mary born circa 1851 in Droitwich, Worcestershire. Another daughter, Mary Ann (seemingly known as Ann or Annie to avoid confusion) was born circa 1855 in Stoke-on-Trent. In 1875, Mary YATES marries Abraham SAUNDERS in the Stoke Damerel district of Devon. In 1878, Annie YATES marries my gt-grandfather, Thomas COOK in Redcar, North Yorkshire (close to where I currently live). I have the marriage certificate for this and Annie's current place of residence is shown to be Redcar. Her sister, Mary (YATES) SAUNDERS is one of the marriage witnesses and father James YATES is the other. In 1881, James & Eliza YATES are living in Loftus in North Yorkshire and Mary & Abraham SAUNDERS are living with them. In 1891, no sign of James & Eliza YATES on the census. Mary & Abraham SAUNDERS moved back down to Devon. What I want to know is how can I trace the YATES family prior to 1875 when daughter Mary got married? I recently tried looking on the 1871 census microfilm to see if I could find the family living in either Loftus or Redcar but couldn't find them. Problem is they could have been living in Devon at that point but then again they could have been living somewhere else. As you can see they moved around a fair bit and I've run out of ideas for the moment. Andy.

Hello Andrew I know how you feel about travelling families; I have a whole section of ancestors who were actors, and they seemed to have moved every year. Also I have the name YATES in my tree, and it seems to be a lot more common than I thought. Anyway, have you tried to obtain birth certificates for Mary or Mary Ann. That will give you their Mother's maiden name, and then hopefully enable you to find their parents marriage certificate. I did have a quick look on the LDS site, but there are just too many James Yates's who got married around 1844-1852. And on the BMD, the same story. You really need the Mum's maiden name because there are SO many James Yates. Sorry I haven't been much help.

Hi Suzanne, I did try looking for Mary Ann's birth details but with little joy. I've still to look for Mary's birth details, so I will look for this in due course. I'm thinking of also getting Mary and Abraham's marriage certificate in order to see if I can get any further clues. My own feeling is that Mary must have been living in Devon prior to her marriage (Abraham was from Cornwall) but the question is were her parents (James and Eliza) living down there also at the time? I can't really make out why the family would have moved around so much as James was a gas fitter and that doesn't sound like a travelling job to my mind...well not to the extent of moving all over England. As a slight aside, the Yates name has been very helpful to me as my great uncle was christened William Yates Cook. Because his middle initial was Y, this has enabled me to find his marriage and death details, which occurred post 1901 when under normal circumstances I would have had no chance of finding him. Surprise surprise, he moved around a lot as well; born in North Yorkshire, married in the West Midlands and died in South London!