So he won't put his hand in his pocket to help out a church? Sounds like a typical Yorkshireman to me. Maybe that's why he's so rich, he's careful with his money.

Andy - a true Yorkshireman and proud of it.

Who said evolution was a myth?! At least when Bill talks you can understand what he says.

Percy Shaw, the bloke who invented cat's eyes.

"Man from country founded on immigration finds roots in other country - shock news"

In other news, the Earth completed a revolution of the Sun last year, and is currently on schedule to complete another one this year. Not that Billy Gates will believe this, coming from Yorkshire and all...

I'll get me wellies

..be a Yorkshite man, but he is certainly a cocksure man and he is also a dorkshire dweller in secret. but i have o idea if he likes emmerdale, like those other two madmen in the US named in the article.

"At least when Bill talks you can understand what he says."

Well, I understand each individual word, it's when I try and understand the meaning of them when he puts them all together that it all goes to pieces...

Don't tha do owt for nowt unless tha does it for this un, or you can license it for 1000% more than its worth.

Paris cos she's non discriminatory, she'd shag a Yorkshireman for nowt!

Efros

He can't be from Yorkshire. Have you ever met a Yorkshireman who didn't mention it at every possible opportunity.

"The Yorkshire people are by reputation robust in physique, though not especially handsome, efficient and vigorous in their undertakings, blunt in speech and rather well satisfied with themselves. They dislike excessive expressions of emotion and are cautious with strangers, but once they accept you they are staunchly if soberly faithful. They prefer practice to theory. Above all, they are extremely independant. An Abbot of York wrote to Henry VIII:

'There be such a company of wilful gentlemen within Yorkshire as there be not in all England besides.'

In Queen Elizabeth I's days the men of Halifax were spoken of as behaving:

'after the rude and arrogant manner of their wilde country.'

It would be rash to suggest that Yorkshire folk have changed much since those days, and this applies to the women as to the men.

A Yorkshire person has a strong backbone; lean on it but do not try to bend it."

- Phyllis Bentley

Guess Mr Gates blood got a lot diluted then . . . .

His family were master confectioners and his name, backwards reads "E ba gum Trebor"

Mine's the coat in mint green

The only way to be a Yorkshireman is to be born in one of the three Ridings of Yorkshire. So he is not a Yorkshireman. He is desended from a Yorkshireman.

Well guess that explains the Internet Explorer icon anyway...

yet more proof that the white rose influence spans the globe, although he has injected (sic) money into the school of tropical medicine in liverpool so cant be that tight

mines the one with the whippet lead and eccles cake in!

born n bred!

That'll be the A58, unless Chain Bar is clogged.

Mines the one with Black Sheep on it

That's a photoshop if I've ever seen one!

This is not good news. I'm from Halifax and I'm a Halstead. I feel really, really ill. Any genetic link might explain why one of my ancestors was gibbeted for being a wool monopolist.

Depending how far forward any common ancestors go, he might be distantly related to George Washington, General Robert Lee and the sodding Bowes-Lyons.

"And did those bytes in ancient time,

Walk upon England’s monitors green

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On England’s pleasant disk drives seen

And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Windows 7 builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?"

I sincerely hope not.

I might feel a little proud.. but bill gates!! I actually grew up in northowram brings back memories lol

and chain bar is always clogged when i try to leave work lol

Jesus, this is the first time I've typed the word Yorkshire more than once in a year and I've only just realised how stupid it sounds. E ba gum indeed.

Nice comment Mr. Crawshaw...

If he's 11th generation then Gates must also have DNA fragments from a couple of thousand other people as well as Jonas the Christian fundamentalist from Halifax. The chances are his roots can also be traced to most other counties in the UK and beyond. Great story, but was it originally inspired by a pressing need to fix the church roof?

11 generations means an lot of potential links to places in the world. In theory, it implies two to the power of ten or eleven combinations of ancestors (depending on how you count generations). Naturally, a large proportion will overlap, because people moved around less in the past. But it's a hell of a lot of ancestors.

Not all ancestry is admitted, for racial/racist reasons, but most people have heavily mixed ancestries. You only have to check DNA to find interesting combinations.

It's why every US Presidential candidate turns out to have an Irish ancestor, who can be called on to get out the Irish-American vote.

I exposed Bill Gates as the twin brother of Postman Pat years ago! Check your back issues of Computing...

I think I prefer

Hear all, see all, say nowt.

Drink all, sup all, pay nowt

And if thi ever does owt for nowt, do it for thissen.

Tim - there haven't been any Ridings of Yorkshire since 1974 ;)

Charlie, Sheffield.

God's Own County vs. Rest of World But Especially Lancashire has to be the longest running flame war in existence. There really was no need to throw Bill into the mix.

Hang on, what about Eureka, where science=fun?

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/Microsoft-founder-Bill-Gates-is

Insert choice of word/s...

Eleven generations ago, one of his ancestors was from Yorkshire. That would make him 1/2048 of a Yorkshireman (generously assuming no in-breeding of cousins, etc.) - about 0.05%.

Or to put it another way, 99.95% NOT Yorkshireman...

Paris, 'cos he's just as likely to be as closely related to her...

why I hate the bugger - Blackburn born, and proud of it.

Penguin, because it's about Bill

first-out-of-the-taxi-last-to-the-bar

Since when did ECCLES (clue: town in Salford, formerly Lancashire) cakes come from Yorkshire??!

Lancastrian through and through, don't care what them Greater Mancunian buggers say!

I thought he was supposedly from Yorkshire not Dundee?

mines the armour plated parka.

Efros

wrong, you mong

east riding were reformed in 1996

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Riding_of_Yorkshire

we've got our own flag too

=)

Dundee!?! This is turning into a food fight! Dundee cakes, Eccles cakes, what's that other silly cake from Yorkshire? I'm not talking about that cricketer... Ah, Kendle Mint Cake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Yorkshire_people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

"we've got our own flag too"

Fly it all you like (you mong), you're still the wrong side of the Pennines.

:-P

Wrong side of the Pennines? I think you'll all north of Watford! Mate!

Cockernee's rulze k.o.!

On me old joanna, up the apples and pears, you diamond geezer, blah, blah, blah...

Now I'm sure that the only thing I like from Yorkshire is the Terrier (of which my family has had a couple, can be wonderful dogs; or not). OK, to be fair, I admit that's the only thing I know from there too, but there you go...

Gates didn't give money to fix the church? Good. Now, if instead of taking all that time to research his ancestry they had payed attention to the fact that Gates is an atheist, they might have saved themselves quite some effort...

By Anonymous Coward

Posted Wednesday 6th August 2008 12:37 GMT

Is wool monopolist a euphimism for sheep worrier? Did he ask for any other animals to be taken into consideration?

;)

in the comments for us Cheshire cats to poke fun at the Yorkshirites.

When I saw this on the news-stands walking through Halifax Town yesterday I didn't expect it to read it on the Register!

Are you saying that BG is a bit of a mongrel, as you seem to refer to the fact that his 11x Granny would have needed three ridings?

Today scienists revealed that they were 99.99% sure that widows live longer than their deceased husbands.

Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee,

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!

Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?

Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!

Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane

Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

For the rest of the song: http://www.ilkley.org/iguide/baht.htm

No celebs in Yorkshire

so they have to trace a fine hair of DNA, back to 1700... or whatever,

to gain some celebrity status, how pathetic the ego really is?

Yorkshire should be proud of producing Yorkshire pudding

and not claim, to be the birthplace of computer programming.

Dave

I grew up in West Yorkshire not far from Halifax and Gates' ancestry comes as no surprise to me given the local prediliction for sheep shagging, indeed some years ago the local paper featured a front page article on a local man caught in an embarassing situation with a cow. Perhaps those horns on Bill's head aren't necessarily demonic after all

that photograph. I always though that BG was a funny shape but his haed is two sizes too big for the boddy. And whi os that looking over his right shoulder. It's Prince Philip -sorry, Duke of York, isn't it?.

Just goes to show if you are going to phake* a picture, do it properly.

* "phake" as in computer made ph(otographically f)ake image. Hey! I just made a word up.

"God's Own County vs. Rest of World But Especially Lancashire has to be the longest running flame war in existence."

True, even though we handed their arses to them in the War of the Roses (the Yorkist record was won 10, lost 6, drew 1 if my ossified O-level history is up to snuff)

Or, as my sister often says: "What's the best thing to come out of Lancashire? The M62" - said with all the sincerity of someone who lives in Preston ;-)

Would have been more appropriate if BillG had been descended from one of the good burghers of York - they're equally adept at screwing money out of people and giving shoddy products in return ...

....when he's photographed with Dicky Bird or made the Mayor of Wetwang.

a Geoffrey Boycott icon!

"a Geoffrey Boycott icon!"

They've probably got one, but they're taking their own time in making it available. Not unlike Sir Geoffrey on the cricket pitch, in fact ;-)

When I were a lad we had to get up at four in the morning, solder all the connections on t'motherboard with a two-pound gas iron, write us own operating system and then do a fourteen hour shift down t'pit.

They don't know they're born today.

My mother could've put an icon on this page quicker than them! and she's ninety-fowah!

close t'winda will ya Melinda we're running of resources in 'ere