You can read more about the Guild here. I am privileged to be the current registrant with the Guild to curate work regarding our surname. If you want to add content simply contact me.

It is our name, not mine; everything you see here, or you contribute, will be preserved and accessible forever, by the Guild. This preservation feature is the number 1 reason you might contribute. Many times, our years of collecting are lost when we die. This is your chance to avoid that.

This study is being shared via a website with links, webpages, and a Blog. We also are using a TNG database which includes about 7,000 people named Yates. I have a special interest in building a large Yates database of confirmed DNA cousins and ancestors.

Except of the Yates Book, Edgar Yates, 1906

Who was the first Yates isn't known; very likely there were lots of him. For the name Yates is identical with that of Gates, and those who first bore the name were so called because they lived at or near the town or village gates. historians say The old provincialism for gate was yate. Our Yates, once written "atte Yate" (at the gate).

The following names were found on the very oldest English records: "John atte Yate" (Calendarium Inqnisitionum Post Mortem), "John At-Yates" (History of Norfolk-Brometield), "Henry atte Yate" (Writ's of Parliament), and, "Roger atte Vate" (Polls of Parliament). While we may be of the Jutes or the Goths, the probabilities are all in favor that we originally were just peaceful dwellers by the village gate or hedge. ...more on page 2