I just noticed that when I look someone up in ancestry.com, the bottom of the list of my matches gives interesting facts about the surname I was searching for. From it I learned the following. In the 1880 census the major occupation of persons named Coates was "Farmer". In the 1881 UK census, the most Coate families lived in Sommerset with 89 families living there. That's the county my Coates came from! Linda LINDA COATE, Columbus, Ohio [email protected] www.ancestrees.com