Putting our House in order - June 2019

Post Reply
mardler
Site Admin
Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Putting our House in order - June 2019

Post by mardler »

Hello everyone. Here is June's newsletter. The sun is high in the sky and I've been out sailing most weekends, but still we have been busy,

Bumper month for the website!
We added almost 4,800 people and finished with over 150,000 for the first time. How did we do it? Well, we were busy anyway, but we also got lucky. After talking with a fellow member of the Guild of One-Name Studies who is working on the Ruby One-Name Study, he devised a way to download people from the various online voter rolls produced by several US states. Typically, each such state shows online the name, the date of birth (sometimes only the year), and the address for each citizen over age 18. So far we have added around 3,600 people from Arkansas, Colorado and Florida. We could readily identify about 100 people who were already in our database. The chances are that there will be more, but we just didn't have enough information on many people to be sure.

There are six more states' data to come: Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, the middle two being the largest.

People from some societies may wonder at how free with information people in the US are. I have some sympathy with that view but in the end, I think total publicity is the best way to avoid people stealing my identity and by far the best way to reduce electoral fraud. For example, in the UK, the electoral registers are public in theory, but in practice you have to go to the town hall to consult a paper copy and anyway, all you see are name and address. They are of limited use to family historians though sometimes you can deduce relationships by looking at the names of other people at the same address. With dates of birth too, these US state records are very useful.

Regular readers of this newsletter will know too that we keep track of marriages in England and Wales, just to see how well we are doing at identifying them all. There are very nearly 24,000 marriages between 1837 and 1950 and this month we passed the 80% mark of those we have identified. We also know the date and location for almost 1/3 of them.

RootsTech London news, and giveaway
The RootsTech team have been busy preparing for the event in London. In addition to Donny Osmond, they have secured the presence of a Yorkshire singing group called Tre Amici (three friends). They had a terrific debut on the X-Factor TV show. You can see a recording of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjM3jItbpmk. Just as a reminder, these folks will almost certainly sing together, but the format of the RootsTech keynote sessions is that the presenters will also talk about the importance of family in their lives. It usually ends up being inspiring, trust me!

The team has also prepared the schedule for presentations, such as mine. I will be "on" at 1pm on Saturday, 26th October. I plan on being at the show all three days and will spend most of my time at the Guild of One-Name Studies stand/booth. If you are attending, do please stop by and say, "Hello."

Now, as an Ambassador for RootsTech, I have the delightful task of offering a FREE three-day pass. How I do it is totally up to me. So, given that I am speaking about this study, I thought I would focus the method on the study. So, to become eligible for a draw for the FREE pass, you need to do the following:
1) before August 12, send a note to paul (at) howesfamilies.com and include the word RootsTech in the title.
2) in that note, EITHER send me a piece of data on someone named House, Howes, Howse, Hows or Howze that we do not already have. It might be a fact or a picture of a certificate. Feel free to offer more than one!
OR if you have done so in the past, just remind me of who you are and what it was

As I did for the Salt Lake City conference, I will put the names into the hat and ask my wife to draw one out. The lucky winner will need to accept their freebie by August 16.
The complimentary three-day pass includes the following:
• Over 150 classes
• Keynote / General sessions
• Expo Hall
• Evening event
Please note that if you win, but by August 16 you have already bought your own ticket, the good folks at RootsTech will refund your money. So don't delay, get your ticket now while they are still cheap!

Howes finds Snoopy
Many thanks to Stephen Howes who pointed out this piece. If, like me, you are of a certain age and remember Apollo 11 and the first moon landing, you may also remember the final rehearsal for that great day, 50 years ago this month! In the rehearsal, two of the astronauts from Apollo 10 got into a lunar landing craft, called Snoopy, dropped down toward the moon, returned to their space craft and then jettisoned Snoopy.

As reported by many newspapers, British Astronomer Nick Howes claims to have found Snoopy. Well, to be fair, he says he's 98% sure he's found it, but that's good enough for me. Read all about it here:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ ... space-news
Stephen tells me his son went to see Nick Howes speak in Cheltenham about this a few weeks ago. His son's name? Nick Howes!

Puzzle Corner
Simple question this month: one of the main promoters of Beatles concerts in their early days was Arthur Howes. Who was he?

Sad news item of the month
Poor Mary Ann Howse (https://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php ... ee=Onename). She married at the age of 22 in Oxfordshire, England. Twenty-three days later she was placed into her grave. So she was married less than three weeks, which must be close to a record, though I think Britney Spears may have broken that with 3 days! Mary Ann's husband then lived on as a widower for almost 74 years which must surely be a record, unless someone knows different . . . .

Good news item of the month
I can't leave you feeling sad after that last article. So across the pond we go to St Louis, Missouri, where US Army Sergeant Heath Howes was given a home by local charitable efforts after he was severely injured while on active duty.
https://www.kmov.com/news/local-veteran ... 9385d.html
We just can't say it enough to these brave servicemen and women: "Thank you for your service"

All the best for July
Paul
mardler
Site Admin
Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Re: Putting our House in order - June 2019

Post by mardler »

Some of our puzzles are easier than others! Many thanks to correspondents Stephen and Cheryl who both came up with the following excerpt from the book: "The History of Live Music in Britain Volume 1: 1950-1967" by Simon Frith, Matt Brennan, Matt Cloonan and Emma Webster:

"Howes also first entered the live music business as a dance-band promoter. He was born in 1924 in Peterborough, orphaned and then adopted by parents in Yaxley. At the age of 20 he enlisted in the navy, where, according to his personal assistant Susan Fuller, he met up with several fellow serviceman who had worked in the entertainment industry. After the war he returned to Peterborough, and by the 1950s was regularly promoting dances in local halls and dance-band concerts in Peterborough's Embassy cinema. He was one of several regional promoters in Britain ... who would buy individual dates fror touring bands from London-based agents ...
Howes began to distinguish himself from the crowd of smaller regional promoters in the second half of the 1950s, as he took on higher profile, more ambitious and presumably lucrative tours. By 1955, he had expanded his activities beyond Peterborough; now he began to diversify into rock'n'roll and youth pop package tours...
Howes was the exclusive promoter of Britain's biggest pop star, Cliff Richard, and, although still based in Peterborough, by the beginning of the 1960s he had become nationally well known...
When Brian Epstein was looking to book the Beatles on a national tour in 1962, Howes was, therefore, obviously someone to approach. Howes invited the band to Peterborough to play a test event, a support slot for Frank Ifield at the Embassy on 2 December 1962. The crowd (there fotr Ifield) did not appreciate the Beatles' performance, but Howes was impressed and offered them a contract giving him first option on all their subsequent British tours ...
If the Cliff Richard tours had not already done so, the success of the Beatles' tours from 1963 to 1965 confirmed Howes' status as the biggest pop promoter of his time."

From this, it is clear that Arthur is already in our files as https://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php ... ee=Onename. There are a number of questions about this family and we will buy a few certificates to try to figure them out.
Paul
Post Reply