October 2012 - Howes That?

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

October 2012 - Howes That?

Post by mardler »

Hello everyone. Given that we now have 634 registrants on the site, I'm sure I'm not the only person who survived Hurricane Sandy. If you did too, my best wishes and I hope you get your power back soon. It makes me think about how tough things were for our ancestors when a storm happened. Thanks to the internet I had eight days' warning but they had close to nothing at all. We are very fortunate to have the technology we do.

Free stuff
I've mentioned before that British libraries often give free internet access from home to various online databases, often including old, now-digitized newspapers. Well, I hadn't realized until this week that many American libraries do the same. The databases are different, of course, but nontheless fascinating. If you'd not thought of this before, take a trip to your local library and ask.

Sleuthing
People seemed to enjoy a challenge when last I asked for help. I've posted several more recently. To those among you who like a puzzle, please do click on "Who is this?" here: http://howesfamilies.com/forum/index.php. You'll see reference to some of them below.

Margate, Kent
Margate is an old-style English sea-side resort. We were recently contacted by a local historian who recognized an address in our database. She has since sent us several images of places in Margate which we have gratefully added to our records for the people concerned. So if you have ancestors from that town, go take a look again at their records. And if you have pictures of buildings or other places relevant to your Howes/House/Howse/Hows ancestors, please do send them in.

"Decayed seamen"
Miles House was a recipient of relief from a charity in Weymouth, Dorset which specialized in helping "decayed seamen". Anyone know who he was?
http://howesfamilies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=94 for more detail

Hautbois
How do you pronounce that place name? If you said, "Hobbis", you are wise to the ways of Norfolk! Anyway, do you have family who lived there? If so, please do get in touch. We have something we are puzzling over concerning this family and you might be interested in it.

Criminality
Sadly, I have to report that we have a murderer among us. His name: William John Howes
http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename
He killed his daughter and was sentenced to death, but reprieved due to his insanity.
While researching this man, we also noticed that a woman named Nellie Howes was murdered in Norwich in 1912, but we can't figure out who she was. Can you? Go to
http://howesfamilies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=95 for as much detail as we know.

Robert Howes, b1781, from Great Yarmouth?
Working with two correspondents recently, one of whom had been sending us details of marriages in Great Yarmouth, we were able to prove a mistake in a tree that was given us just nearly five years ago. This tree has spread around the internet. If you think you are descended from a Robert in Yarmouth, please do check our research and your pedigree, and if you can help figure out who Robert's parents were, that would be most helpful!

Graveyards in the back yard
I'd not realized until a correspondent drew my attention to it, but a large number of members of a Hows family in Nashville, Tennessee were buried in their back yard which still exists on the property. Apparently, it was not unusual in some parts of the US. Are there more such Howes/etc graveyards?

For the record
We added over 1,300 people this month and now have almost 480,000 facts on the 66,454 people in the database. Our GED file, which we replace every week with fresh data, contains over 2million lines of code!
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