Tag: California
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Walnut Slope Ranch History
In 1921, Gilbert and Beatrice Bates purchased Walnut Slope Ranch in Valley Center, California and moved their family from nearby Ramona. This year (2021) marks the 100-year anniversary of that purchase. This article takes a look at how the property came to be the home of at least four generations of the Bates family.
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The Bates Family Celebrates Christmas 1912
In December 1912, the Santa Ana Register ran an article describing a Christmas celebration at the home of my grandparents, Gilbert and Beatrice [Lockwood] Bates. Of the twenty-two attendees, at least twenty-one were close family members who had moved from Michigan to California.
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Discovering Family Lost in a Shipwreck
I first heard that some family members had died in a shipwreck from my aunt, Luella (Munroe) Bates. She didn’t recall the details, but said that a book had been written about it. The book, of course, had been lost over the years. This is the first of several articles describing the search for those family…
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Finding My Father’s First Home – Santa Ana
When my father Edgar Lewis Bates passed away, I inherited the baby book that my grandmother Beatrice Bates had created for him. Inside the front cover, she had glued several postcard-sized photographs of family homes in Santa Ana, California. The first one she captioned “The place where Edgar Lewis Bates was born Sep 17 1913.”…
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Migration – From Michigan to California
Around 1906, my grandparents and great grandparents moved from Michigan to California. This included all my grandfather’s siblings except one, as well as most of my grandmother’s family. All told, there were at least 21 family members, possibly more, so I’ll call it a migration. I think that the Bates moved out together, but I…
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Background On Bates Genealogy
For the starting post on this site, I will provide a little information on what the blog is about and follow with my basic family background. My intent here is to share the information I find (and have found) while digging into my family history. I am focusing initially on my father’s side, the Bates…