April 2012 - House that?

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

April 2012 - House that?

Post by mardler »

Happy new month everyone. I promised not to say we've been busy. So I won't!

In April, we added 1,300 more people to the database and a good deal many more facts. What has made April really fulfilling has been:
-- re-connecting people long-lost families. We've done that four times in the last month
-- winning two awards for excellence from the Guild of One-Name Studies at their annual conference – details on the front page of the website, where you can also find a link to the article that was published in February's UK Family Tree Magazine
-- finding still more evidence that the Howes/Howse and House names were connected at some point in the past, vindicating further our decision to study all three names together - see next paragraph

What's in a name?
A very interesting case came to my cousin Ian's attention in the last few days. In the 1911 census for Durham, England, a man named G William Howes 1852 from Worcester listed his entire family as Howse, except for one child whom he named Howes. He then signed his name at the bottom of the form as William House!

Then we have Daniel Howes 1755 and his wife Mary Blyth of Ludham in Norfolk, England. She died in 1829 and was clearly listed as Howse in the burial register but all other references, including their gravestone were to Howes.

At the Society of Genealogists in London, there is a research monograph written by Eleanor Kingston into her House ancestors. She states clearly therein that the name was changed from Howse to House in 1625 following a change of incumbant at the local church.

Sally Ann Howes
We've had three examples in the last month of people who claim they are distantly related to Sally Ann, the star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This story seems to persist in many Howes families. Sadly, we haven't found a single true example yet! You can't see her record because she is still very much alive, but her father Bobby was also a stage star in England and his record can be seen here: http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename . Are YOU related?

Missing person
Does anyone have a connnection with an Albert Edwin Howes 1884 from Thame who died in Florida in 1970? Please get in touch.

Unusual marriage certificate
See: http://howesfamilies.com/showmedia.php? ... inkID=4269 for an unusual marriage certificate showing a picture of the church where the wedding took place: St Paul, Balsall Heath, Worcestershire. Does anyone have any others with church or other pictures on them? Please send them in!

South African research news
I learned last week that the LDS church has just put online a collection of 350,000 images of parish records for South Africa. This is HUGE. If you have relatives with a South Africa connection, check out the collection at http://tinyURL.com/cehhftz. Unfortunately, it's not indexed.

Richard Howse 1821, geologist
See http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename for a wonderful example of an early 20th century obituary found in the “Geological Magazine” in 1901 and sent to us by the gentleman's present day descendant and namesake.

Staff Sgt Howse, Royal Army Medical Corps
Correspondent Mark sent us some very interesting pictures from the The War Illustrated in 1917 of a “concert party” entertaining the troops, including a Staff Sgt Howse, who played a bishop. We'd like to connect those pictures to a person but cannot, so far. Did you have a Howse relative in the RAMC? Please get in touch.

Have a good month, fellow truth seekers.
Paul
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