ETCHED IN OLD STONE: Family Names #3 (Z Y & X W)

• PATERNAL GREAT GRAND UNCLES:  X W and  Z Y  BATES (Bates/Morgan/Glover)

On March 3, 1858, my second great grandfather Andrew Jackson Bates married Elizabeth Cordelia Smith in Doddridge County, Virginia, now West Virginia.  Of their ten children, two sons received the unlikely names of Z Y and X W.  Not initials.  No punctuation. These were their names.  In 1880, Elizabeth died at the early age of 39, leaving behind a 10-month old infant (X W) and his nine siblings:

• Sevilla, 
• Jacob Yeater (named after mother's foster father, Rev. Jacob Yeater), 
  
• Missouri, 
• Emma (my great-grandmother), 
  
• Milton Underwood* (named after maiden name of mother's foster mother, Ruth Underwood). In 1933 Milton recorded family history based on the life and death of his ancestor, Montey Bates.
  
  
  
• Byrd (or Bird)
  
  
• Bridget, 
  
• Z Y,
  
• Ginevra
  
• X W (aka "W") 
  

X W Bates married Levada Bell Watts in 1898; three years later, "W"s sister Emma Bates Morgan gave birth to my grandmother, Levada Mae Morgan. 

(*Milton's death certificate reads "Milton Ulysses Grant Bate" as recorded by his brother Z Y. )