William, Thanks for the very nice words on my paper. It especially means a lot to me since you have also done some serious research on Sir John Pate and his family, which I referenced in my paper. Like you, I found the study to be very fascinating with all the new information that I discovered. For example, at the end of the paper, I mention the papers of Sir Harvey Bagott. I only discovered him and his connections just last week. What I wrote about him came from three completely unrelated documents. First, I found an obscure reference to his papers which mentioned correspondence with Sir John Pate in the years just before his death. Once Bagott's name had come to my attention, in another paper I discovered that Sir John's second wife was his step-daughter, and a third document told of how he and Sir John had both been military leaders in defense of King Charles. This is just an example of how people and events are often interwoven, and makes for fascinating research. So relatively little had been known about Sir John previously, he really came alive as a person during my research. I had not known that he was a highly educated man. It was enlightening to realize that he was a contemporary of all the Pate's coming to colonial Virginia. They had come to Virginia because of the same conflicts that he was engaged in on the battlefield. I had never made that connection before. The timeline really highlights that. He had so many misfortunes in his life that I came to feel a lot of compassion for him. The dry facts on paper sometimes obcure the real person, until you think of him as a living man who felt pain and grief. He had eight children die before him, including the loss of his only two sons which meant his baronetcy would not be inherited but become extinct at his death. He lost his first wife and mother of his children when she was only 37 years old. A brother was killed in the civil war. After his losing fight for the monarchy, he was heavily fined (over 100,000 British pounds in today's value), lost many citizenship privileges and his estate, basically ending his life in exile, dying in London rather than on his family estate. You mention the will of Dame Jane Skipwith, which is a fascinating document on its own. I have found more information on her and some of those family connections, and I am hopeful that I can sort them out in a future paper. I believe she was the second wife of Sir William Skipwith, a very famous and wealthy man of his day. He was the father of Elizabeth, Sir John's first wife. Strangely, Nichols' massive work did not include her will nor a discussion of it. That could have provided very valuable insights and information. During this research, I have accumulated so much information about the Pate's in England in the 1600s that I am optimistic that I may be able to link them to the colonial Pate's, or at least to each other. For instance, you mention Henry Pate who came to colonial Virginia with his wife and duaghter. Henry had been a common name in the Leicestershire Pate's (and Skipwith's), perhaps being named after the series of kings named Henry, whom they had served in various capacities. Henry's daughter was named Katherine, which was also the name of the wife of Edward Pate, lord of the Eye-Kettleby manor. These name patterns may hold some valuable clues. It is frustrating, but I am still unable to find any references at all to Thoroughgood Pate in England, though he and Henry had some common dealings in Virginia. If some of those wills I mentioned in my paper can ever be found, we might get lucky and find Thoroughgood's name in one of them. At some point, I intend to prepare another paper with a broader scope on Pate's in England with the purpose of discovering or deducing as many relationships between them as I can. Once again, I will refer to your excellent work as an aid in sorting them out. Thanks again for the nice words. They help make the effort worthwhile, knowing that it is appreciated. A. J. ________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 18:23:16 -0400 From: "WILLIAM PATE" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PATE] The Troubled Times of Sir John Pate AJ: Please let me congratulate you on a marvelous and extremely significant work on Sir John Pate. When I discovered the Leceister account of the Eye Kettlebye estate and some few facts on Sir John, during my researches, that was fascinating. But you have opened my eyes to a great deal about Sir John and his relations that I could only speculate about. Thank you for providing all this to all of us interested in the family name. Though I cannot claim any direct connection to Edward Pate, his son Henry or his grandson Sir John, I will attach your work as a part of my own family genealogy. I hope you approve. Since you properly dealt only with all that you could find related to Sir John, I know this is not exactly attachable to it. But I have also been fascinated by the will of Dame Jane Skipwith who one researcher called the "aunt to the world" for her inclusion of so many people. In her will, she included some Pates (among them a Henry Pate) who she regarded as family. As I'm sure you know, a Henry Pate, his wife and (I believe) sister came to America and settled up in the Northern Neck of Virginia in Westmoreland County. Henry was listed on the accounts a merchant named Lund as was a Thoroughgood Pate. I'm writing this without my genealogy in front of me, so I'm a bit sketchy on dates and full names, but I was wondering whether you had encountered any of this in your researches and whether there was any possibility of relationships? Anyway, congratulations again on such a fine job on Sir John. William T. Pate