It will be interesting to see what we come up with. Here's what's in the Traditional Ballad Index:

Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)

DESCRIPTION: Latin: "Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes, venite, venite in Bethlehem." English: "O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem."
AUTHOR: probably John Francis Wade
EARLIEST DATE: 1760 (Anglican church office manual); probably written c. 1740
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad foreignlanguage
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (6 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, p. 1, "Adeste Fideles" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 380, "O, Come, All Ye Faithful" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, p. 86, "Adeste Fideles"
DT, ADESTFID*
ADDITIONAL: Charles Johnson, One Hundred and One Famous Hymns (Hallberg, 1982), p. 45, "O Come, All Ye Faithful" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ian Bradley, _The Penguin Book of Carols_ (1999), #5, "Adeste, Fideles" (1 text); #53, "O Come, All Ye Faithful" (1 text)
RECORDINGS:
Criterion Quartet, "Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful" (Victor 16197-B, 1908)
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1871 08939, "Adeste Fideles," Wm. J Bonner & Co (Philadelphia), 1871(tune)
Notes: The first American printing of this piece (A Latin version of c. 1803) subtitles it "The favorite PORTUGUESE HYMN On the NATIVITY," but there is no particular reason to consider it Portuguese; according to Scholes in The Oxford Companion to Music, this title derives in fact from the Portugese Chapel in London.
The piece is believed to have been composed in the early 1740s by John Francis Wade, who also wrote the Latin words. Scholes reports an Irish manuscript of the tune dated 1746, and a variation on the theme was listed as an "Air Anglais" in the French Vaudeville "Acajou" in 1744. The rather loose English translation by Frederick Oakley appeared in 1852, based on Oakley's earlier 1841 translation.
Fuld gives details on other possible sources for both text and tune; all are possible, but not particularly likely. Substantiating details are lacking.
Recent scholarship has brought an interesting twist on this history. According to the Penguin Book of Carols, there are six manuscripts of this in the handwriting of John Francis Wade. The one of these thought to be oldest contains a reference to "regem nostrum Jacobum" -- "our King James," i.e. the Jacobite Old Pretender. And, of course, "regem angelorum" is quite close to "regem Angliorem," "King of England." There are also hints of Catholic practice in this manuscript. Whether all this really amounts to anything is, of course, an open question. - RBW
File: RJ19001

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2007 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.