From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Hullo to you all from down-under, I've been researching my BATES for 20 years, but this is my first encounter with the BATES mailing list! Considering the number of us scattered around the World it seems very quiet so I have brought out my old master blaster to wake a few of you up! This was written back in 1995, and has been published a couple of times. It is called "A Ten years search (Maybe I'll be lucky in 1998)' Where family researchers gather, they ask still trying to find your BATES? not waiting an answer, then they say, don't suppose you've found any 'Greats'? And I answer the wife of Captain Cook, nee BATTS was baptised Elizabeth BATES and the Guy Fawkes gang had a member, christened Thomas followed by BATES. But whilst I claim a descendant to be, of this Fawkesian namesake of mine. It is said with tongue in cheek, some-one will prove it's moonshine! In my sincere and honest endeavours don't think our name relates. In fact I'm beginning to worry that out there, there ain't no BATES. That no-one out there is aware that the surname BATES exists, newsletters, are read with concern, looking, hoping persists! That some-one else is looking for , that surname which is mine called BATES The GRD, one name studies are out, relatives, very bad straits. Yet surely somewhere, there is some-one, with that name, fairly common, called BATES. Please if you have it, no matter its source, please write so I know, I have mates! Back to Kingsclere, Ham, UK, one six eight three, yes, very good, quite an early date, and stuck, putting it mildly, oh, where are you, you BATES, you BATES, you BATE? They seek him here, they seek him there, that Fawkesian reprobate Jim. email [email protected]