Rebecca Jane BATES, an aunt to Edith Beaumont (recent posts), married James COATES in 1849. He was about sixteen years her senior so I was rather suspicious of the apparent first child Sarah on the FamilySearch Shared Tree, born four years before the nuptials.

After finding a first wife for James and collecting the birth registrations of their five children, I went back to the Shared Tree to see if they all had representation there. Young Sarah has a duplicate ID.

The two families of solicitor James Coates need to be checked and brought together. They are an intersting bunch. John C. HOPKINSON, husband of Sarah junior, has no sources attached to his record but appears to be John Clifford, born in 1842 to another aunt of Edith’s – Elizabeth. Given a Wetherby birthplace here, he should really be placed with the Ambleside folk.

James junior, a solicitor like his father, died aged thirty following a long illness, consumption perhaps. A local newspaper carried a moving obituary. I will share it in a few days when these houses have been put in better order.

Measure of Man 62 · Rig