43. The Maternal Ancestry of George Yate of Maryland (d. 1691)

The new 4th edition of The Omnibus Ancestry: 785 Documented American and European Lines (2020), has been simultaneously released with this blog entry.  Besides extending existing lines and correcting errors, it has 166 more lines than the 3rd edition.  Many of the new lines, but by no means all, concern the maternal ancestry of George Yate.  The book is available through this link to Lulu.com.

George Yate (ca 1643?-1691) immigrated to Maryland by March 1664/5, and from 1670 to 1684 served as Deputy Surveyor for Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.  Because he named several of his land tracts after locations in Berkshire, England (e.g., Lyford, Ufton’s Court, Denchworth, and Padworth Farms), his paternal ancestry was deduced some time ago to derive from a Yate family of Lyford, Berkshire.  This was confirmed when a probate record of the estate of Thomas Yate of Lyford, dated 1658, named George Yate as a minor grandson.  He and his sister Elizabeth were then wards of their mother Elizabeth Yate.  From this it was possible to conclude that George was the son of John Yate, who was deceased as of the writing of his father Thomas’ 1654 will [12].  However, his maternal ancestry through Elizabeth has heretofore been unknown [13].

Yet in March 1666/7, Jerome White, Surveyor General of Maryland, called George Yate “my cousin” [1].  That was several years before George married Mary Wells Stockett, whose first husband Thomas Stockett died in 1671 [2].  The relationship was therefore between Jerome and George, and not between Jerome and George’s wife as often claimed.  Furthermore, in 1667 White was surveyed “Portland Manor” [7, 10], thereby identifying as the Jerome White who was the son of Richard White, of Hutton, co. Essex, England, by his wife Catherine Weston, daughter of Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland [8].

Jerome and George were not first cousins, however, for the first and last names of all four of Jerome’s grandparents are known, and there is no possibility that any of them were also grandparents of George.  Any such relationship would have had to be through George’s mother Elizabeth [9].  But Richard and Mary (Plowden) White, Jerome’s paternal grandparents, had no daughter Elizabeth as of ca 1614 and 1634 [14].  The maternal grandparents, Richard Weston and Frances Waldegrave, did have a daughter Elizabeth, but she married in 1623 to John Netterville, and predeceased him [3].

However, George Yate could have been Jerome White’s “cousin” if by cousin Jerome actually meant nephew.  At the time such usage was common, and there are many known examples where “cousin” meant nephew, including several in The Omnibus Ancestry (see the Dickinson, Martin (James), Shircliffe, and Whittamore Lines).  Jerome had an older sister named Elizabeth of about the right age to be George Yate’s mother [4].  In April 1642, she was included in a pass to France issued to her parents and siblings, approved by Parliament [5] – presumably an attempt by the Catholic family to escape a religiously repressive England on the brink of civil war.  I believe that about this time Elizabeth married John Yate, perhaps an attempt by the family to save her from an unmarried exile’s fate.  Intriguingly, a “Mr. Yates” and “his Wife” were also issued a pass to France, in September 1642 [6].  Whether or not those were John and Elizabeth, and whether or not their children were born outside the country, George was their first child, born ca 1643? [11].  Assuming his mother was Jerome White’s sister, George was Jerome’s “cousin” – i.e., nephew.

Importantly, the name of their son is itself supporting evidence for the marriage between John Yate and Elizabeth White.  Specifically, Elizabeth White’s eldest brother was George White, providing a source for the name.  George White was the presumptive heir of their father Richard White, and he did in  fact succeed to and sell the Hutton estate [15].  He was also the heir of the childless Jerome White, and sold Portland manor to Lord Baltimore sometime after 1676 [10].

Finally, Elizabeth, daughter of George Yate, married Thomas Plummer, and named a son Jerome Plummer [16].  The name manifestly derived from Jerome White, who because of the Yate-White marriage would have been Elizabeth’s great uncle.

Assuming the circumstances sufficiently establish, as I believe they do, that George Yate was a son of Elizabeth White and great-grandson of Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, he had extensively traceable ancestry including multiple descents from King Edward I and King Edward III of England.  For those, and for Richard White’s surprising academic career and association with Galileo, see the new 4th edition of The Omnibus Ancestry: 785 Documented American and European Lines (2020).

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Notes:

[1] See J. Kilty, The Land-Holder’s Assistant and Land-Office Guide, p. 158 (1808), where a document is transcribed instructing that land “be laid out by my cousin George Yate”.  It was signed by Surveyor General Jerome White.  Writing on the back of the document, Charles Calvert instructed “Captain Burges” and Richard Ewins, “you may cause George Yate to lay it out accordingly”, and gave the date as 13 Mar 1666.  Today this would commonly be stated as 13 Mar 1666/7, given that at the time, the new year began on 25 Mar.

[2] Information retrieved from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stockett-9 (2020).

[3] Dictionary of National Biography, v. 40, pp. 234-5 (1885-1900).

[4] In the 1634 Visitation of Essex (see W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Essex, 1878), her oldest brother was named as George White, age 6 – i.e., b. 1627/8.  Elizabeth was shown as the oldest daughter.  If she was older than George, she would have been b. ca 1625?.  John Yate, her inferred husband, was bap. 1612/3, and George Yate was b. ca 1643?.

[5] Journal of the House of Commons, v. 2, pp. 516-518.

[6] Ibid, v. 5, pp. 344-5.

[7] Information retrieved from http://genealogytrails.com/mary/annearundel/lordsofthemanor.html (2020).

[8] A transcription from the Journal of the House of Commons (v. 2, pp. 516-518) gave the name “George Jerome”, but those were actually two sons.  See note 10, indicating that Jerome bequeathed property to his brother George.

[9] George Yate’s mother is often said to have been Mary Tettershall, daughter of George Tettershall [Sr.].  Indeed, during the 1665-6 Visitation of Berkshire, George Tettershall [Jr.] named as his sister “Mary wife to John Yate of Lyford in Com: Berks” (see W.H. Rylands, The Four Visitations of Berkshire, v. 1, 1907).  Yet there can be little doubt that John Yates’ widow was named Elizabeth, for she was the mother of Thomas Yate’s underaged grandchildren George and Elizabeth Yate in 1658 (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, v. 64, pp. 176-180, 1976).  This conundrum has a simple solution: John Yate must have married twice, his first wife having been Mary Tettershall, and his second wife and widow having been Elizabeth.  This conclusion is supported by the relatively late marriage of John to Elizabeth, apparently in 1642 when John was about 30 years of age.

[10] It is said of Jerome White that he “came to Maryland in about 1661 and left late in 1670”, and that he “was a Catholic who had lived in Rome and probably had been educated there” (see E. Arnett, R.J. Brugger, & E.C. Papenfuse, A New Guide to the Old Line State, 1999, 2nd ed.).  In Maryland, he may have been responsible for the “baroque axial plan” of the city of St. Mary’s, a design largely developed in Italy (see R. Bennett, Settlements in the Americas, 1993).  In 1673, in Modena, Italy, he played a role in the marriage of Mary of Modena to the future King James II of England.  Thus “the Bishop of Modena did not deem it advisable to perform the marriage ceremony himself, — ‘so a poor English Jacobine was found, Brother to Jerome White'” (M. Haile, Queen Mary of Modena, 1905).  The “brother” [actually uncle] was Thomas White (Md. Historical Magazine, Spring 2015, p. 115), alias Thomas Blackloe, a Dominican priest and prominent religious author (information retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_White_(scholar), 2020).  Jerome himself was a Dominican lay priest, and became a chaplain of Mary of Modena (The Catholic World, v. 33, p. 762, 1881; also R. Palmer, The Life of Philip Thomas Howard, O.P., Cardinal of Norfolk, 1867).  It is said he was gifted a jewel by a relative of Mary, which he subsequently bequeathed to a sister (information retrieved from https://www.geni.com/people/Frances-Petre/6000000019362767656, 2020).  Jerome died childless in 1677 (information retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquinsicke, 2020), leaving his Maryland manor to his brother George White, who sold it to Lord Baltimore (E. Putnam, The Governor’s Council of Md., 1634-1689, thesis, 1969).

[11] The second and apparently last child was named Elizabeth (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, v. 64, pp. 176-180, 1976).

[12] Ibid.

[13] Writing in Plantagenet Ancestry (2011), Douglas Richardson implicitly rejected the contention in National Genealogical Society Quarterly – by pointedly not mentioning it — that Elizabeth was the same person as Mary Tattershall (Tettershall), a known wife of John Yate of Lyford.  I completely agree.  Richardson left Elizabeth’s surname blank.

[14] W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Essex (1878).

[15] P. Morant, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, v. 2, p.195 (1768).

[16] For Jerome Plummer, and for the discussion and resolution of misunderstandings about the Plummer ancestry, see the Plummer Line in The Omnibus Ancestry.  It is not true that Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Plummer, was the daughter of Mary Wells by Mary’s first husband Thomas Stockett.  Elizabeth also did not marry the Thomas Plummer who d. 1694/5.

[Postscript 25 Oct 2020 — Please note that [6] gives an incorrect reference. Instead of Journal of the House of Commons, v. 5, pp. 344-5, the correct reference is Journal of the House of Lords, v. 5, p. 344.]