Howze your father? - April 2015

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

Howze your father? - April 2015

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Hello everyone. April has seen me begin to get my feet under the table at the Guild of One-Name Studies and thus the first sign of lowering of productivity in terms of numbers of people added to our site! We added just over 800 this month and finished at 97,250 or so.

SEVEN telegrams from the queen
The big news this month concerns the parents of one of our correspondents, Ann Perkins. You'll have seen the picture in our covering email but I've reproduced it here:
Arthur and Rosina Howes
Arthur and Rosina Howes
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It shows her parents Arthur and Rosina Howes on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, which is when one normally receives a telegram from Her Majesty the Queen. You will see that there are not one but seven telegrams. As Ann explained to me, a married couple gets a similar telegram for their diamond wedding anniversary (60th), the 65th, the 70th and annually thereafter. I doubt many people have received seven telegrams.

And as if that were not enough, Arthur is also in incredibly select company because he has lived to see the centenary of his father's death. Think about that for a moment . . . . Arthur's dad died serving King and Country in the trenches of Northern France twelve days before he was born.

Arthur's story is so remarkable that in addition to having been featured in the Shropshire Star, I understand he will receive a mention in Tom Wood's column in a forthcoming Family Tree Magazine (UK). Congratulations to Arthur and Rosina.

By the way, since Arthur has reached 100, both he and you can see his personal details here: http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename. It's worth reading the notes to see his advice for a happy marriage!

Rev. Robert Myron Howes - RIP
In this pursuit I get to see many obituaries. Every now and then, one of them jumps out at me and I put it aside for this month-end note. Pastor Robert Howes of Kennebunkport in Maine who died on April 2 was a truly remarkable man who gave his whole life in the service of others, and if you read his obituary here http://www.pressherald.com/2015/04/07/r ... n-dies-90/ you will see that he didn't stop when he retired in 1989!

Let's face it: when our time comes few of us will be able to say that we changed the environment around us enough to have made a difference and will be remembered much beyond our immediate friends and family. That is not true of Robert Howes, as the tributes paid to him in the obituary show. (As an aside, Robert's daughter became a correspondent within the last week)

Meeting Friends and putting faces to names
With the Who Do You Think You Are? Live show in Birmingham, I was able to meet several other researchers into our name, including Judith and Chris Jordan (who research Commonwealth war dead for this site) and Patrick Cunningham, who specializes in the Howes family of King's Cliffe in Northamptonshire, and whom I had not met before, Judith Howse, Steve Pratt and Richard Liddell, who even gave me a CD with an enormous amount of research he has done and which I am just starting to work through.

I also had a couple of adult beverages with Kelvin Searle of Norwich who has been very helpful in researching local Howes families for us when I'm not in Norfolk. Most of all, I want to thank correspondent John Howes and his wife Sue who were kind enough to host me at their home just a few miles from the NEC in Birmingham. I didn't expect to make friends when I started out on this journey. It's a real bonus to have done so.

Just in case you're in the Boston, Massachusetts area in September, let me say that I expect to be speaking there at a public event on Sept 23/24. More details to come as details firm up.

The lighter side
Just occasionally, I get a chuckle. My face lit up when I entered King George into our database this month! Mr George married Matilda Howes in Hickling, Norfolk in 1820. I ran a quick check and see that we also have a King Arthur Howes and several people named Prince Howes. My favourite remains Horatio Hamlet Prince Denmark! His family must have had a sense of humour.

And finally, I just had to share this endearing story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... chine.html. Didn't we all want to do that when we were younger?! By the way, does anyone know this family? I think I can see the father's birth, but cannot find the marriage probably because online data only goes up to 2008.
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