The first mention we found of the name is on the English Calendar of Rolls in the reign of King Edward III. It is on a warrant bearing date Dec. 10, 1330, "on complaint by John de Moubray" that some 40 persons including "Adam atte Yate ....hunted on his land without a license; carried away deer from the chaces, and hares, rabbits and pheasants from the warrens, and assaulted his servants."

Substantially all English writers on the derivation of surnames give the same derivation to Yates. One, however, in speaking of the Teutonic origin of man, English names, refers both Judd and Yett (Yate, Yates) to the tribal name Jute; it was the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes who settled England and after driving back the original Britons beginning in the year 449; in fact, it was a little band of Jutes, under Hengst and Horsa, whose landing at Thanet in that year was the first step in making England Anglo-Saxon instead of Celtic.

Yateses are found in all parts of England and Scotland, and the name is far more common there than the US. Some of the Yates name were among the earliest pioneers in the US, and at least two were living here when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. The first Yates to discover America, so far as the records show, was "Ferdinando Yate, gent," who arrived at Jamestown in the Virginia colony on the ship Margaret in December of 1619 and returned to England on the ship Supply, on April 3, 1621.

The next Yates to reach Virginia was Edward Yates, a boy of 14, in May of 1620. John Yates was granted 350 acres in Elizabeth City County in 1636. The head of this family was the Rev. Bartholomew Yates (1676-1734), a graduate of Oxford University, who was professor of Divinity in William and Mary College. His son, the Rev. William Yates, was president of that ancient college from 1761 to 1764. Rev. William Yates, who married Eliza Randolph, and his brother, the Rev. Robert Yates, who married Eliza's sister, Mary Randolph, were "ancestors of most of the Yates family of Virginia."

Dr. Michael Yates, a native of England, was of Virginia before the Revolution. He settled in Caroline county, and married Martha, sister of Chief Justice Marshall. Some of their descendants were early in Kentucky and Illinois, and it of this family that were born two governors of Illinois. Another family of the name is that of Joseph Yates, who settled in Albany soon after the surrender of the province by the Dutch to the English in 1664. Joseph, son of Colonel Christoffel and Jauetje (Bratt) Yates, another of the same family, was the first mayor of Schenectady, then judge of the state supreme court and finally governor of New York state, 1823-4. Robert Yates, another of the same family, was a member of the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and subsequently became chief justice of New York state supreme court.

The first Yates in Pennsylvania appears to have been James from Walton in Lancashire, who landed at Philadelphia in 1684. Famous in another way is Jasper Yates, from Yorkshire, England, who came to Pennsylvania in 1697, and three years later was a member of the council of Governor William Penn. His grandson Jasper, was famous in the Revolution, married a cousin of the wife of Benedict Arnold.

In Maryland, George Yates was of Anne Arundel county in 1669, and was afterwards deputy surveyor-general for the county; John Yates was of Dorchester county in 1677, and Robert Yates, was of Charles county in 1686. In North Carolina, William Yates of Bertie county made his will Dec. 23, 1751, and James Yates of Carteret county made his Nov. 8, 1750.

In New Jersey, there were Yates families at Cape May in 1762. The first Yates to settle in Massachusetts was John Yates, who had a son John, born 1650. He removed to Eastham, on Cape Cod, and there died. John Yates of Eastham, probably his grandson, married Abigail Rogers and very likely founded the long line of Yateses on Cape Cod. Josiah, John, Joseph and Isaiah Yates, all from Cape Cod, were soldiers in the Revolutionary war.

The Round Pond Yateses were the earliest of the name in Maine. James Yates, their progenitor, settled in Round Pond harbor in Bristol in 1742. His granddaughter, Betsey (Yates) Boole, said he came from Yorkshire, England, when quite young and that he met in Boston Jane McNay whom he married. She also stated that he had a brother Thomas in Rhode Island and a brother George in South Carolina. One other Yates family was founded in Maine before 1800, namely, the Standish group. This group is descended from John Yates of Cape Cod, before mentioned. "Yates, Edgar Allan Poe, 1856-"