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William Bate(s) of Liverpool, England and Ontario, Canada

William Bate was baptized on Dec. 6, 1821 at the church of St. Peter in Church Street, Liverpool, Lancashire, England. His parents were William and Catherine (Cottier) Bate. His younger sister, Rebecca (Bate) Buck, was my great-great-grandmother. William does not appear with his family in the 1841 England census. See William and Catherine (Cottier) Bate for more information. At the time that census was taken William would have been about 20 and was likely out on his own.

If not for information provided by my mother's cousin, John Buck, I would never have been able to identify our William from the numerous men born William Bate or Bates about the same time in England. [William and his family seem to have used Bates more than Bate, or at least they appear in the records that way.] Here are some quotes from a letter John wrote to me on July 25, 1993:

"Ed Buck said he one time made a date with a McUen girl and when he went to pick her up, her mother who was a daughter of Daniel Bate got talking about how much relation they were and mentioned going to Bath to visit people."

"Ed Buck said he remembered them talking about Wilson Buck when young going to sail with his uncle Dan Bates."

"Dad often mentioned about going to Kingston when he was only a boy with his uncle - I thought he said "Billie" Bate - on an old sail boat of some kind and of not too large dimensions as Bate and he were the only two aboard."

In a letter dated February 22, 1994, John mentioned his father and William Bates again:

"My father sometimes mentioned an uncle I thought he called "Uncle Billie Bate" who had a small sail boat of some kind upon which he took Dad to Kingston when Dad was only 8 or 9 years old."

William Bates' sister Rebecca was married to Azel Buck. They had sons named Parker, Wilson, and Miles, among others. Wilson Buck was born about 1860. Miles had a son Edwin (Ed) Buck who was born in 1905. Parker had a son named John Harrison (Harry) Buck who was born in 1884. His son John Buck is my mother's cousin.

Harry Buck spoke of sailing to Kingston with his uncle William Bates when Harry was 8 or 9. That would have been about 1892 or 1893. Harry was living with his family in the Bath area of Ontario at that point. It is less than 20 miles from Bath to Kingston. William was in his early 70s then and was actually Harry's father's uncle.

Daniel Bates was William Bates' son and was not Ed Buck's or Wilson Buck's uncle. Daniel's father William was Rebecca (Bate) Buck's brother and as such William was Wilson's uncle and Ed's great-uncle. That made Daniel a first cousin to Wilson and a first cousin once removed to Ed. However, Daniel was older than Wilson and Ed and one or both of them might have called him uncle because of that.

Ancestry.ca and the LDS website http://www.familysearch.org have two marriage records for Daniel Bates of Kingston. On Jan. 18, 1874 he married Honora Mannix. Daniel's parents were given as William Bates and Ann Maddock. His age was 21 and he was a sailor. Ancestry.ca has a death record for Honora. She died on Nov. 20, 1881 of inflammation of the lungs at the age of 28. On Aug. 11, 1884 Daniel married Emily Mary Deroche. He was listed as 29 and a sailor, and his parents were William Bates and Annie Maddock. His place of birth was given as Port Dalhousie which was in Grantham Township, Lincoln County, Ontario.

I looked for a marriage record for William Bates and Ann Maddock and found on the LDS website that a couple with those names had married in St. Peter's Church in Liverpool, England on Aug. 3, 1851. This was the church in which various members of my Bate family had been married and baptized so I thought it had to be the right couple. After a time I realized that this couple stayed in Liverpool and had children there through the 1850s, and these children did not include a Daniel. Clearly it was the wrong couple. I have not been able to find a marriage record for Daniel's parents and I suspect that they were married in what is now Ontario, and perhaps in the Port Dalhousie area.

It's likely that William and Ann (Maddock) Bates were living in the Port Dalhousie area when the 1851 census was taken. That census for Grantham Township has not survived. The family appears in Grantham Township in the 1861 census (District 3, page 53), so they were likely still living in Port Dalhousie at that time.

The first and fourth members of the family were male and the other three were female. As William was baptized in 1821 he should have been about 40 when this census was taken, so it appears that the ages may be somewhat off. Nonetheless I think it has to be the same family. I have gone through the 1871 census for Grantham Township but they were not there.

It seems that the family, or at least some of them, moved to Kingston at some point after the 1861 census was taken. In "County Marriage Registers of Ontario Canada 1858-1869/Vol. 16 Frontenac County and Kingston City," compiled and edited by Elizabeth Hancocks, 1986, there is a marriage record for Annie Bates to William A. Smith on Aug. 5, 1867. Both were residents of Kingston and they were married there. William was 27 years old and was a gunner in the Royal Artillery. His parents were John and Elspith (Allon) Smith, and his place of birth was Elgin, Scotland. Annie was 18 and the daughter of William and Annie (Maddocks) Bates. Her place of birth was Port Dalhousie.

There is a baptism record for William Smith on the LDS website. He was baptized in Elgin, Scotland on Apr. 22, 1838 and his date of birth was Mar. 10, 1838. His parents were John and Elspet (Allen) Smith. William was 29 and not 27 when he married Annie.

In the Kingston census for 1871 there is a possible record for Annie. Her husband William Smith may have died by this time, though I can't find a death record for him. Annie appears in Frontenac Ward, sub-district C, page 9. It looks as if she and her two children were boarding with a Campbell family who don't seem to be related. This seems like a good fit for Annie as the first child was Elspeth, which was William's mother's name.

I have not been able to find Annie or her children in any records after this census. I have not been able to find her parents William and Annie Bates in the 1871, 1881 or 1891 censuses but they must have been living as William took his great-nephew Harry Buck from Bath to Kingston in the early 1890s, and Annie appears with her son Daniel Bates and family in the 1901 Kingston census (see below). I also have not been able to find a death record for either William or his wife Annie. I have not been able to find anything at all on the daughter whose first initial was R. I don't even know her name.

Daniel Bates and family appear in the Kingston census records for 1891 and 1901, but I have not been able to find them in 1881. For 1891 they were in Frontenac Ward (District 80, Subdistrict 5, page 15):

According to the 1891 census, Daniel's parents were both born in England.

For 1901 the family was in Cataraqui Ward (Subdistrict A, Subdivision 4, page 1):

James was listed as Daniel's son-in-law, Lenora was Daniel's daughter, and Annie was his mother. Annie was listed as a widow, so William must have died before the census was taken. Evidently "Minora" in the 1891 census was actually Lenora.

I have found the following records for Daniel's children among the Ontario birth/marriage/death records on the Ancestry.ca and LDS websites:

1) Mary Ellen Bates, 21, married Richard McGill on Dec. 7, 1897

2) Kathleen Bates, 21, married James Arthur Elliott on Jul. 17, 1899

3) Gertrude Maud Bates was born on Sep. 7, 1880 and married Robert Edward McUen on Nov. 8, 1899

4) Honora Eliza Bates was born and died on Nov. 17, 1881

5) Eleanor/Lenora Bates was born on Nov. 17, 1885 and married James J. Murphy on Aug. 7, 1900 and James Jacob on Sep. 7, 1906

6) William John Bates was born on Feb. 2, 1887

7) Daniel James Bates was born on Sep. 1, 1889 and married Lottie Wilson on Jun. 24, 1913

The first four children were born to Daniel and his first wife and the last three were born to Daniel and his second wife.

There is a death record for a James Murphy of Kingston on Apr. 9, 1906, age 26. He died of typhoid fever. This was likely Lenora's first husband.

The month of November 1881 was a very sad one for the Bates household. Daniel Bates registered three deaths on Dec. 3 of that year. Honora Mannix, age 72, died on the 10th of November. She was likely Daniel's mother-in-law as he was the informant for the death record. She was a widow and as such it seems possible that she was living with the Bates family. Cause of death was inflammation of the bowels. Daniel's wife Honora gave birth to a daughter also named Honora on the 17th of November. The baby died the same day. The cause of death was inflammation. Daniel's wife died on the 20th of November. Cause of death was inflammation of the lungs, with duration of three days. Daniel did not remarry until August 1884, so I hope that Daniel's parents were nearby and able to help with the children until then.

John Buck has gone through some of the old Kingston newspapers and has found a number of mentions of Daniel Bates in them. He was a ship's captain and later owned a number of small ships. His last ship, the Fabiola, went down in October 1900. Daniel and his crew of three survived but the ship and cargo was lost and there was no insurance.

Daniel was admitted to Rockwood Asylum in Kingson in early July, 1901 and he died there on Aug. 13, 1901. A local newspaper reported that he has been ailing for some months apparently due to worry, and that he had been in a more or less delicate condition since the loss of the Fabiola. The report stated that he was twice married and was survived by four daughters and two sons. He was born at Port Dalhousie and was 50 years old when he died.