Dear David, I got your e-mail, but my computer froze up so I am trying today. I don't want to make this too long, but you and I have the same line down through James Bate and Mary Martin to Clement. However, the children of James and Mary do not coincide with the ones I have. They are James, Clement, Joseph, Benjamin, Samuel, and Rachel. I have just finished a family tree back to John (1415-1445) and they are authenticated with wills copied by Col Theodore Cornelius Bates of Massachusetts, and put into a will by Cyrus H. Bates of Cohasset. I must tell you that the Edmund and Edward are not in this line. Ken Bates of the Bates Association has been looking for them for a long time, but I am not sure he ever solved the mystery. He is a Mormon in Salt Lake and is very able to find these facts. His e-mail is KNBate@Lgcy.com. He thought we were cousins, then the Edmund-Edward connection proved we were not. But he came down to help me set up the PAF and also helped me fill a gap of of Laben, son of Laben. I got my DAR because of this, but I haven't talked to him for a long time. Mary Jane Evans of the Bates Ass. also was hunting this down. What I have is straight back, probably to Sir Gerard Bate of Yorkshire, Lord Mayor of London in 1248, but I don't have that confirmed. comfirmed. Good luck. I am way down in Victoria, TX, but come from a long line of Bateses. My mother was a Bates. Billie North