March 2010 - Howse that?

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mardler
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Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

March 2010 - Howse that?

Post by mardler »

Greetings truth-seekers. March's update is just a little late, because I've taken a few days off to be with my family in New Jersey. We had a couple of days in our nation's capital and just happened to time it perfectly to be there at the very peak of the cherry trees' flowering. It was quite breathtakingly beautiful and it was a real bonus to find that the politicians had left town for their Easter break. Our wallets can breathe easier for a couple of weeks, at least!

I've also tried to be a little more ecumenical in my choice of heading. This site isn't just about the HOWES name, but three others too.

Surname distribution
It's so automatic for us to consider that people with different surnames are of different blood, separate from ourselves. My research seems to be showing that that is not the case. I said last month that I would put up a page on the site showing maps of our surnames' origins. It's now there. To see it, click on the little map of England and Wales toward the top of the right hand column on the front page of the site, or click here: http://www.howesfamilies.com/histories/distrib.php . Particularly if you are American, do read the story at the bottom of the page. It could well be that you need to widen your net to track down British Howes/House/Hows/Howse ancestors.

I have had suggestions that we should grow the site still further to include HOWE and perhaps even HAWES. It does make logical sense, especially when one looks at the distribution of the Howe name across England, BUT there are more people called Howe than the total number of possessors of our four surnames put together, AND there are only 24 hours in the day. So it's not going to happen unless we had a team of 5 or 6 people working on it. Are you willing to help?

Other website updates
We've changed the front page now so that it looks different almost every time you access it. Hope that makes it a little more interesting. If you have thoughts about other images to include, do let me know.

The hard work of adding more data proceeds apace with another 800+ names this month. My cousin Ian is working hard through the marvellous new parish register images for Norfolk put online by the Church of Latter Day Saints, and I've been responding to new site registrants, doing some real detective work (see the linked page above) and adding in details of 19th century marriages for families with all four of our names in parts of Buckinghamshire and Gloucestershire in England.

Have you learned something about your House/Howes/Hows/Howse family recently? Have you perhaps found an old birth, marriage or death certificate? Do you have new arrivals, perhaps: marriages or births? If so, do let me know. We'd like to keep the database up to date.

Once again, thank you for your interest
Paul Howes
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