Mary Yate (Tattershall) - Mary or Elizabeth?

Find A Grave says Dorothy Stephens was buried at St Olave's in 1613, but Richardson says Hanney 18 Feb 1642/3.

The Hanney registers should be out there somewhere.

As for John's wife, Richardson just says he married Elizabeth ___. But he does cite this chart

https://archive.org/stream/fourvisitationso5657ryla#page/292/

The pedigree was signed off on by George Tettershall himself, so presumably he'd know his own sister. (He was unusually specific in giving his age - not only how many years, but as of what day!)

So was the "Elizabeth" a slip of the mind of Thomas Yate, or a slip of the pen of the person writing the probate account (contrary to what I thought, the information wasn't in the will proper), or had Mary Tettershall Yate decided she'd had enough of being a Mary and wanted to change her name, or did John Yate really have two wives (seems a bit far-fetched), or is there some other explanation?

Parish records for Lyford may not exist as far back as the 1540s, unfortunately, as there is no official ercord at Familysearch.org - just a lot of say-so records.

The parish church of Saint James the Great, West Hanney was the mother church of the parish.[1] The church of St. Mary, Lyford was built in the Middle Ages as a dependent chapel.[1] East Hanney had a dependent chapel of St. James by 1288 but it was dissolved in the 16th century.[1] (Wikipedia)

The Victoria County History reference for "Parishes: Hanney" is helpful for the specific history of the churches, but iffy when it comes to the Yates of Lyford (they missed the skipping of a generation from Thomas Yate to *grandson* John Yate Jr).

Victoria County History reference says: The registers previous to 1812 are as follows: (i) baptisms 1582 to 1654, marriages and burials 1564 to 1654; (ii) all entries 1666 to 1699; (iii) baptisms 1666 to 1766, marriages 1699 to 1753, burials 1678 to 1783; (iv) baptisms 1766 to 1812; (v) marriages 1758 to 1793; (vi) burials 1783 to 1812; (vii) marriages 1792 to 1812.

A further complication is that the Yates were recusant Catholics and might not have utilized the parish registers anyway.

Tagging the VCH reference just in case: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp285-294

Yes they're said to have had resident chaplains. But hopefully they'd be buried at the church.

Burial was about the only thing that recusants couldn't circumvent, so they tend to show up in the parish burial records if nowhere else. (Findagrave.com has too many say-so records, probably taken from the International Genealogical Index, which is a random mixture of sourced and unsourced records, sometimes reliable, sometimes not.)

One other note: any time you see "January" or "February" (or to some extent "March") in an English-derived record prior to 1752, *watch out*. Most of the rest of Europe went onto the new improved Gregorian calendar in 1582, but the English (and their subsidiaries and colonies) stuck with the old Julian calendar until 1752, complete with beginning the year on March 25.

Have had some vehement, not to say vicious, objections to the theory that Mary Tattershall Yate might have changed her name, so that leaves the alternate possibilities: Thomas Yate got it wrong; the probate account writer got it wrong; or George Yate had a (probably step)mother named Elizabeth. Short of digging into the parish burial register, the matter admits of no resolution.

Mary (Tattershall) Yate had a mother whose name was Elizabeth and was probably Mary’s middle name. Based off of the Tattershall pedigree in the Berkshire Visitation, it is almost certain that John Yate, Sr. did not marry twice. He certainly didn’t marry a second wife named Elizabeth White either.

George Yate grew up at Ufton Court with the Tattershall family where it certainly appears he was Mary Elizabeth Tattershall’s biological son.

John G. Hunt’s 1976 article on the English ancestry covers all the speculation about the name “Elizabeth” in the records and gives plausible reasons for it. He also squashes some of the far fetched speculations of a second wife of John Yate, Sr. and the various family surnames assigned to her.

In sum, there’s no reason to believe that John Yate, Sr. married twice and secondly to Elizabeth White or that George Yate was the son of his father's second wife.

All the evidential evidence points to John Yate having one wife and George Yate being the biological son of Mary Elizabeth (Tattershall) Yate!!!

KM - the 17th century is generally too early for middle names (with *extremely* rare exceptions, mostly male and showing an "interpolated byname" rather than a true middle name).

So that leaves it that somebody (most likely the probate account recorder) got her name wrong.

Maven B. Helms - whether Mary Tattershall used Elizabeth as a secondary (middle) name or an alias as a Catholic recusant, there is zero evidence that John Yate, Sr. married twice. The 1665 Visitation of Berkshire certified by Mary's brother, George Tattershall, Esq., explicitly states that John Yate had just one wife (Mary Tattershall). Furthermore, when the pedigree was certified in 1665, the mysterious second wife of John Yate would have been married to him before his death. If there was a second wife confirmed of John Yate, such a pedigree would have annotated that.

And yes, women in the 17th century could have more names than just a given and surname. Either way, Mary's mother was an Elizabeth and other Tattershalls used aliases to thwart Protestant authorities in this time period, as the Tattershall family were Catholic recusants. If you want to go with the notion that the recorder confused her name with her mother's, then go ahead with that theory. Again, there isn't any real credible evidence that John Yate, Sr. married twice and to a second woman sometime in the 1640s, contrary to what some like David Boles (amateur genealogical blogger) seem to believe.

Even when they started with the "middle names", which was generally later in the 17th century (if at all), it was usually short simple compounds (Mary Ann, Mary Jane, Mary Sue, Sarah Jane, etc.)

So I think the probate account recorder goofed. (Most likely suspect, as not being all that familiar with the family.)

I don't know why WikiTree continues to say that George Yate's mother was Elizabeth_____, the second wife of John Yate, Esq. (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Yate-17). It seems clear from the Visitation of Berkshire and other contemporaneous records that John Yate, Esq. married only one woman in his life and that woman died sometime after 1664.

There are zero records showing any indication that John Yate, Esq. married twice or that he married a second time to a woman named Elizabeth _____ or Elizabeth White! The name Elizabeth shows up in a 1658 probate record and that's it. Yet, wild speculative conclusions continue to persist over on WikiTree, where now they say that George Yate was born not in 1640 but in 1642, as his father, John Yate, Esq., married this particular Elizabeth _____ in 1642. WikiTree is conducting some monumental chronological fine tuning to fit the dates just right for a second marriage of John Yate and a birth date of George Yate in 1642.

Whoever is in charge of the Yate family profiles over on WikiTree should really get their acts together. All the professional genealogical literature going back to the 1980s on this Yate line from Maryland has only ever stated that Mary (Tattershall) Yate was the mother of George Yate, Gent. (died 1691).

Wikitree has trouble getting and keeping its act together in all too many cases.

There does seem to be a link between the Yate and White families, but it isn't this direct. (George Yate was Jerome White the Surveyor's "cousin", but that covered a lot of possible connections and was probably not as close as "first cousins".)

Did Mary (Tattershall) Yate really die in 1642 as attested to by Wikitree on her husband's profile page there (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Yate-43)?

The Visitation of Berkshire in 1665-6 lists her as the wife of John Yate of Berkshire and certified by her brother George Tattershall.

What are the odds that Mary Tattershall outlived her husband, John, and then died after 1658?

Because the name Elizabeth shows up in a 1653 commissioned report with John yate and then in 1658 in a probate record as the mother of two younger Yate children, we are then to conclude that this Elizabeth in these two records is the second wife of John Yate, Esq? The 1653 record says that Elizabeth is not a recusant. If this is Mary Tattershall who was a recusant, would she have told the court recorder that she was, when she in actuality didn't want anyone to know? You have to use some common sense here.

But, hold on. The geniuses at WikiTree believe that is enough evidence in and of itself to finally conclude that John Yate married twice and George's mother was not Mary Tattershall. That would mean that George had to have been born in or after 1642 and could not have been born in the late 1630s or in 1640/1 because Mary Tattershall had to have died in or before 1642.

Does this all make sense? It doesn't help when it fuels the wild speculation juices of a blogger like David B. Boles, who believes that the Elizabeth mentioned in the 1653 record with John Yate and the 1658 probate record must have been Elizabeth White.

Obviously, Boles' seems to have influenced some WikiTree Magna Charta Project folks to drink his Kool-Aid and perpetuate his outlandish theories.

Still, in 2018, Gary Boyd Roberts publishes the Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants (which was reviewed by Douglas Richardson) and in the Yate lineage has Mary Tattershall as the mother of George Yate (d. 1691). However, certain WikiTree amateurs continue to dismiss Roberts' work as not reliable and openly state they follow Douglas Richardson. But wait, Douglas Richardson was consulted for this work and reviewed just about every line. There is a true hypocrisy going on with these particular Yate profiles on WikiTree!

Let's see...Mary Tattershall *would* have been a recusant, the Tattershalls were known for that. So the likelihood of her being a non-recusant Elizabeth in 1653 is just about nil.

Related question: is the 1653 reference to *the same* John Yate? Neither name was that uncommon, after all....

David B. Boles seems to have an obsession with White of Hutton. Hope he isn't trying to make a case that Frances White Wells was the daughter of Sir Richard White *and Lady Catherine Weston*, as chronology argues very strongly against that. (I left open the possibility that she was the daughter of Sir Richard and first wife Anne Gray, which has a more favorable chronology.) It's still icky, as that would make George Yate and Mary nee Wells half first cousins, which is too close for Catholic canon law but permissible (if frowned upon) under Anglican rules.

On the whole I'd rather go with George being Mary Tattershall's son and a *possible* later stepmother Elizabeth whoever-the-heck.

By the way, the "not a recusant" statement on Elizabeth categorically rules out any White of Hutton connection - they were *all* recusants.

Just spitballing here.

So let's suppose that John Yate, Esq. (d. 1653) did marry for a second time to a non-recusant named Elizabeth. That would surely indicate that she was not a White. In the 1658 probate record this Elizabeth is identified as guardian and mother to the two (George and Elizabeth) younger children of John Yate, Esq. Simply calling her mother would just mean that she had authority and guardianship over them and not necessarily a biological relationship.

In the absence of a marriage record for John Yate and Elizabeth ____, all we know is that they were possibly married in the mid-1640s after all four of John's children by Mary Tattershall were already born.

So, I agree that this Elizabeth _____ was probably a stepmother to George (b. 1639) and Elizabeth (b. 1642/3), and that she was most definitely not a White as Mr David Boles seems to want to continue to push.

Unfortunately, without proving that John Yate, Esq. (d. 1653) did actually marry for a second time or having a firm date of death for Mary Tattershall, the speculation that 'Elizabeth _____' was a different woman from Mary Tattershall remains just speculation!

Lots of things have to remain guesswork, like the actual ancestry of Frances White Wells (Harry Wright Newman just wrote her off as being of general immigrant stock), or whether Jerome White, Surveyor was the same person as Jerome White, son of Sir Richard White and Lady Catherine Weston. (Evidence for the latter is predominantly conjectural and circumstantial, but bears heavily upon the former.)

The Frances White Wells case is just another instance where suppositions become wild speculative conclusions, such as the name Elizabeth appearing in a 1653 and 1658 record associated with John Yate, Esq. and George Yate, where all the evidence points to the woman most likely being Mary Tattershall.

During this time, recusants who were women did not want the authorities knowing they were recusants because of the legal ramifications, fines, and harsh treatment upon them. John G. Hunt's original 1976 article on the English Ancestry of George Yate even points to men using aliases to hide their recusant status. So, it's not some wild, far-fetched idea that Mary used her mother's birth name and told legal authorities or commissions that she wasn't a recusant in order to be able to inherit her deceased husband's property, etc.

To begin with, anything written by John G. Hunt should be taken with large heapings of salt - he's not that reliable.

Wikipedia has this on Francis Tregian (the Elder); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Tregian_the_Elder
Per Wikitree and for what it's worth, the Tregians were distant cousins of the Royal Tudors through the Arundells and Greys.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Arundell-206
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Arundel-110
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grey-11
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grey-162

Point 5 is a mess that's been argued over time and again, without any resolution. See: https://berkshirehistory.com/articles/campion_lyford.html
Specifically: "The marriage of Frances White of South Warnborough (Hampshire) to Francis Yate of Lyford is recorded in the contemporary Heralds' Visitations of Hampshire. Hunt dismissed this as impossible and claimed that Francis must have been a mistake for his father Thomas. Whilst he was correct in noting that such mistakes in the visitations were quite common, he gives no reasoning behind this bizarre supposition. A wife of Thomas Yate, and presumably the Brigittine nun, is recorded in the local parish registers as Anne or Agnes. She died in the Summer of 1580. She and Thomas would have been married in the late 1550s or very early 1560s, as the records of the manor Hurstbourne Fauconer (Hampshire) show that Thomas' first wife (married about 1540) and Francis' mother was Elizabeth Fauconer who died in or before 1562. Frances White could not have been a later wife of Thomas than Anne/Agnes, as he had died in 1565. She could not have been an earlier wife than Elizabeth either, for she would have been too young. Frances and her eighteen siblings were mostly (if not totally) born between 1531 and 1566 (the birth dates of her eldest and youngest brothers, Henry and Richard). She could just about have been a middle wife, but she would still have been dead before Thomas died in 1565. In fact, there is no reason at all to suppose that the visitations were not correct. Frances White did indeed marry Francis Yate, not Thomas. "

Note: The query is so old that all the links are dead.

I've been arguing in vain for years that Hunt got it wrong and Frances White of S.Warnborough married Francis the Recusant Yate, *not* his father Thomas.

Nothing has ever been done about it.