Robert the Bruce

Last week I found myself in a most unusual situation. My grades were calculated and entered into the district system and my students were diligently (well, most of them anyway) working on the latest project and I had NOTHING TO DO! Yikes! After just one day of sitting and staring at them as they worked I realized that if I had to go through two more days of this boredom I would lose my mind. So, I went over to the abbreviated copy of my family history that is on the wall and picked out an unusual name to search on www.ask.com.

"William Fleming BATES" looked like it would do the job.

Now, keep in mind that twenty-five years ago I set out to document my children's heritage back to the immigrant ancestor on every line. It's been quite an adventure as, it turns out, our ancestors were very early immigrants to America. In fact, we have early Cherokee ancestry which means VERY early immigrant ancestors. As I find immigrant ancestors, I stop working on that line and move to another. William Fleming BATES was born in 1802 in South Carolina, and it was his gggggreat-grandfather, John Isaac BATES, who immigrated to the colonies sometime before 1625. It was William Fleming BATES' ggreat-grandfather who married Susannah FLEMING and it his her line that connects to that of the Stewart kings of Scotland and through them to Robert the Bruce.


As always, it ain't real until it's documented, but how interesting this is! Apparently the Kings James were personable men who preferred the arts to the arts of war, which certainly can be said of my sons. What fascinates me the most, though, is that AGAIN my mother's and father's ancestry cross way back when. As I was reading and recording information about the Stewart line I started recognizing place names and, upon checking my records, found that my father's CARRUTHERS ancestors were in the same places at the same times as my mother's FLEMING ancestors. This isn't the first time this has happened; one of my father's ancestors was sister to one of my mother's in the 17th century.