Hows your father? - February 2015

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

Hows your father? - February 2015

Post by mardler »

Happy new month, everyone. First up, I owe everyone an apology: I don't know what happened to the email I sent last month, but it doesn't seem to have landed in too many inboxes. Feel free read last month's note too - I've put a link at the bottom of this note.

Sponsoring certificates?
Last month, I thanked correspondent Netta in New Zealand who sponsored two marriage certificates for our files. They arrived during February and I was happy to report to her that we had solved two mysteries with them. One of them enabled us to connect up an Arthur Howes to his parents whom we otherwise could not figure out.

The other was a little more involved and involved a William Howes, the most frequent name in our database (there are almost 2,000!). Because it's a common name we could not figure out who his parents were. Worse, there wasn't actually a marriage record for a suitable William Howes, but there was one for a William Hawes which seemed very likely. So with Netta's help we sent for that certificate. Bingo! Although William's family name was clearly spelt as Hawes three times on the marriage certificate (See: http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename), it was clear from his occupation and his father's name that he was a Howes, from the village of Saham Toney, in Norfolk.

Netta paid for the certificates directly and had the copies delivered to me. I scanned it for her with an explanation of what we found. If you would like to sponsor a certificate, please do get in touch. We have a list of 30 more which we'd love to have, just from England and Wales!

Peregrinations
In February, I was fortunate to attend RootsTech, now the world's largest family history event, with over 20,000 attendees, all at once! Being retired I don't see so many Powerpoint presentations these days and it was a real culture shock after four days straight! After taking Sunday off to see some of the beautiful Rocky Mountains in the area around Salt Lake City I had three long days in the Family History Library, queueing up to enter at 8am and twice being kicked out at 8:30pm!

I wanted to do something there that I could not do anywhere else. In the past I'd copied out lots of detail from several privately published trees only available in book form. This time, I'd hoped to be able to look at Scottish records, but the Scots refuse to make their records available in any other way than pay per view, which if I were so minded, I could do from home. So instead, I looked at New York marriage records, the microfilms for which are only available in Salt Lake City or New York, each marriage requiring a separate microfilm! In three days I managed to enter 200+ marriages for males named Howes, House, Howse and Howze. I just ran out of time for the final 24. So they'll have to wait for next time, as will the marriages for the 220+ females!

Last weekend I gave a presentation to the Jacksonville Genealogical Society about this study, which seemed to be well received by 30+ people.

One correspondent with whom I am friends on Facebook rightly berated me for not letting her and others know that I would be in the Salt Lake area. So, I will try better in the future. Here goes:
- on Sunday March 8 I will be on St Simon's Island presenting to the Southern Georgia Genealogical Society about this study
- on Saturday March 14 I will be presenting in St Augustine, Florida to my local GS about using British records after national registration in 1837
- from Friday March 27 through Sunday 29, I will be in Brigg, in Lincolnshire, England at the Annual conference of the Guild of One-Name Studies
- from April 16-18, I will be at the NEC in Birmingham, England for the Who Do You Think You Are? Live event. I'll be speaking about this study on the Saturday morning and for much of the rest of the time will be on the Guild of One-Name Studies stand.

If you're near any of these events, please do stop by and say hello. It's always a pleasure to put a face to a name.

Marriage tourism?
These days, it's not that unusual for couples to travel long distances to get married, low-cost flights making this an economic possibility for large numbers of people in ways unimaginable to their parents. But how about in 1891?!

Well, it happened. Some 3 or 4 years ago, my cousin Ian rebuilt many families in Somerset. One of those was for a House family in the village of Stoke St Gregory. Father's name was William. Son John married an Eliza Hembrow in 1862 and then died in 1887. In the 1891 census, Eliza the widow was still there with one of her children, but then disappeared. Ian's suspicions were aroused when he noticed that by the 1901 census John's younger brother, Thomas Trivitt House, had married an Eliza of the right age to have been his sister-in-law, but he couldn't find the marriage record. He left the following note on the file for Eliza, wife of Thomas: “possible that this is Eliza Brewer Hembrow who was previously married to John House, son of William - marriage not found but 1911 states that they have been married 20 years”.

That message sat there until last week, when I found an October 1891 marriage for Thomas Trivitt House and Eliza House . . . . in Manhattan! I've looked for, but not yet found, the passenger records for Eliza and Thomas, but it's obvious that they were in New York for a relatively short period since they were back in their home village in 1901. It seems that there must have been quite a story here. Can anyone shed more light on it?

Thanks for listening!
Paul

PS Oh, and last month's newsletter is here:
http://howesfamilies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=129
Well worth a gander. Interesting puzzle!
kate mcrae
Posts: 1
Joined: June 17th, 2014, 9:41 am

Re: Hows your father? - February 2015

Post by kate mcrae »

Thanks for all this. I have paid the London Metropolitan Authority (Kew) to do an hour of digging for me about Helen Howes and they have been really helpful, even turning up bits of helpful information before I'd committed! I'm waiting to hear from them. Equally "The Keep" in Brighton have been very helpful and I am waiting to hear back from the Brighton cemetery authorities that they put me on to. The Howes website has been invaluable in turning up information as well as keeping me motivated! Maybe see you, Paul, at the NEC.
mardler
Site Admin
Posts: 315
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Re: Hows your father? - February 2015

Post by mardler »

That'd be great, Kate. If you don't see me at the Guild of One-Name Studies stand, do leave a message, or make sure you are there when I do the presentation on the Saturday morning!
ATB
Paul
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