| This one is from a window at the First Dutch Reformed Church in Schnectady, NY. The church was burned to the ground in1948 and members of Yates Family had this window installed when the church was rebuilt. There had been a Yates window in the small chapel before the fire. This window is in the main church on the right as you face the altar. |
 | This one has been handed down in the Southern branch of the family for generations. Its origin is unknown. The motto, not very clear in this copy, is "Pro Rege et Patria", For King and Country. Across the middle are three antelope heads with another at the top. The three gates seem more like the ones used at castles than those used on the farm. The colors are not designated. |
Yates coat of arms.
Coats of arms do not belong to a family name. They belong to individuals who are acknowledged as their owner or who receive a grant for them [from a foreign government] or who make them up for themselves.
A coat of arms may be claimed by a male descendant of an unbroken male line of any person who has a legally recognized right to a coat of arms.
Daughters have the right to use their father's coat armour as long as they remain unmarried or they may combine [by impaling or escucheon of pretense] their father's arms with those of their husbands. If their spouses have no arms, daughters may continue to use their paternal arms for life, but this right is not inherited by their children and expires with their death.
If a person [an armiger] who has the right to bear heraldic arms has no sons but only daughters, the daughters are heraldic heiresses and their children may quarter the arms of their mother with those of their father. If their father has no arms, the right is lost unless the arms are regranted to them as heirs of their maternal grandfather. [Ref: "Heraldry For United States Citizens," The Board for Certification of Genealogists, The Report, Ohio Genealogical Society, Vol. 36, #1, Spring 1996.]
To summarize, unless you are a male who descends in an unbroken male line from a person who rightfully possessed a coat of arms and you can prove the relationship generation by generation back to the original grantee of the arms, you have no right to claim it as your family coat of arms on the basis of the surname alone. If you're a female descendant, forget it!
Yates Coat of Arms
I have another theory on the variations of the Yates Coat of Arms. Similar to Smith, there are different root variations Black-Smith, Gold-Smith, SIlver-Smith etc. All Smiths probably do not come from the same line since the Smith name started up based on the various Smithy occupations. My theory is the same with Yates. The origin is universally agreed upon as a varient of Gates - the gatekeepers. Here goes the theory:
Yates with the coat of arms showing the top of the castle in the center strip were castle gatekeepers.
Yates with the goats heads in the center strip were shepherds. The pass between two mountain peaks is known as a gap, pass or gate.
Similar to Smith, the various Yates families could have started simultaneously yet independent of one another.
Just a thought.
In a book I saw years ago it said: YATE originally meant gate keeper. And there
are 9 YATES and YATE coat of arms listed by Berry, pretty well scattered over
England.
Ellen Byrne
I have added a list of nearly two dozen Yates family coats of arms to my web
site at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/2179/Yates2.html accessible from
the Yates descendant chart.
Jeff Snavely