Anna De Ridder Yates was born in 1726 and christened at the Albany Dutch church on August 28. She was the first child born to regional landholder Cornelis De Ridder and his first wife, Susanna Vandenburgh. Her mother died during Anna's childhood and her father remarried. Cornelis De Ridder is most often identified with Schaghticoke.

About 1746, twenty-year-old Anna De Ridder married ambitious Albany native Abraham Yates, Jr.. By 1762, five of their children had been christened at the Albany Dutch church where both parents were pewholders. Their marriage would further solidified a business relationship between Yates and Anna's father.

These Yateses set up their home in the third ward where Abraham began to build a legal practice and political following. As he often was called to public service beyond Albany, Anna managed their Albany interests and raised her small family. During the Seven Years War, her husband charged that Anna was harrassed by British soldiers (who were quartered in their house) to the point that she suffered a miscarriage.

While he was mayor of Albany during the 1790s, their new home was a Market Street landmark. In 1790, their home (next to that of Domine Westerlo) housed twelve people - probably inferring her extended family.

Anna De Ridder Yates died in February 1795 ending a marriage of almost fifty years. Her husband died fourteen months later.

Sources: The life of Anna De Ridder Yates is CAP biography number 5696. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. She is the subject of a biographical essay by Shirley A. Rice published in Women of Colonial Albany: A Community History Calendar for 1986 (issued by the Colonial Albany Project in 1986). A link to that essay will appear here in the future!

New home: During the 1790s, Yates is said to have built a large house on the east side of Market Street. Their descendants lived there for several generations. The last parts of that building were torn down in the 1990s.