Bates Genealogy is owned and published by Michael Bates. It is a place to publicly share my family history research, interesting stories I have found, and research tips that I have found helpful.
Initially, I focused my family history research on the descendants of my great-great-grandfather Gilbert Bates (1796-1880). Before long I expanded it to include many other families and the events in their lives. I will be highlighting not just family information, but also how I went about locating and documenting it.
This site runs on a self-hosted version of WordPress and uses a custom theme. I have built several WordPress websites, but this is the first genealogy-oriented site that I have published. As such, it will develop over time, as I organize information already collected and document new findings.
About Michael
I grew up in Ventura County in southern California and spent four years in the Air Force. My working life was spent in Silicon Valley area in electrical and software engineering. Now semi-retired, I am live in the Umpqua River Valley area in southern Oregon. Aside from my interest in genealogy, I also enjoy raising orchids and am a member of the local orchid society.
My interest in genealogy started in 1992 after the death of my father, when I began to realize how little I knew about his childhood and family. I started to compile a list of questions and tidbits of family stories. Around 1999 I bought a copy of Family Tree Maker and began to build the family tree and have been actively researching my family history every since.
Genealogy feeds my penchant for solving puzzles, as does programming and web development. The Bates Genealogy website is a result of combining the two interests.
Contacting Michael
Interested in contacting me? Email me at michael at batesgen dot com.
Acknowledgements
I want to acknowledge Colleen Greene, whose WordPress For Genealogy articles and Colleen and Jeff’s Roots blog inspired me to create this site and to delve once again into WordPress development.
I have learned a lot about genealogy from the writings of Russ Worthington, whose Family Tree Maker User blog and Cousin Russ videos on Youtube I find very helpful. He has many articles about organizing and documenting genealogy research.