Putting our Howes in order - November 2020

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mardler
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Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Putting our Howes in order - November 2020

Post by mardler »

Hello everyone. You don't need me to tell you we've had another busy month! While the US politicians have been scrambling around trying to figure out what actually happened at the beginning of the month, we've had our heads down, beavering away. Here's the current state of play as we updated our online file last evening.

Our work in November
You may recall that we keep special track of England and Wales marriages to act as a checklist and measure our progress. Between 1837 and 1980 there were almost 33,400 marriages of people with our surnames. We know the identity of and have reconstructed families around both parties for 25,500 of these. And we passed a small milestone this month as we now know the date and place for over 9,000 of these marriages.
During the month, we added nearly 1,000 people to the database, finishing at over 177,700, and we've done a lot more besides, like starting an effort to correct and add to all of the map pins for Gloucestershire.
Our master GEDCOM file (ie, using the standard format for swapping family history data) is now rapidly approaching 125Megabytes and even our backup files now exceed 20Mb! Remember, there are no images in any of that, and almost all the data has been typed in by our volunteers.

We've had two further donations in this month, one from Canada and one from Australia just today of £200. Rather than transfer money to me and have me spend it, we've finally figured out (I hope) that I can compile a request list and then ask the donor to log into my account with the British government and pay for it with their own credit card. Let's see how that goes. Remember too that I promise to match all donations dollar for dollar. So if you would like to contribute, please do let me know.

CALLING NEW ZEALAND
During the month, I had a note from a person in New Zealand trying to give me access to their tree at Ancestry.com. It is a kind offer, but because of the way Ancestry is set up I was unable to click through from the link sent to the ancestry.com.au website. I even called Ancestry's hotline, without success. I did send a message to the Ancestry ID of the person concerned but have yet to receive a reply. If it was you, please drop me a line and let's see if we can try again and fix it. I hope you don't think me ungrateful. That's far from true.

Puzzle corner
It's been some months since we offered up an example from puzzle corner. So here's a bonus offer of two examples where we have bought the marriage certificate, but didn't learn enough to figure out how to take the family farther back . . . . or were just too blinkered to realize how we should have done it! I've often said that four eyes are better than two. So let's see what you can do with these two examples:
1) https://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php ... ee=Onename - not sure why the certificate is not online but we have extracted the key information from it. Questions are: who was Rose May Howes and can you find anything about her earlier life?
2) https://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php ... ee=Onename - as for Rose, can you figure out what John Frederick Howes's origin was, please?
Thanks in advance for whatever help you can be. If someone comes up with a good answer, I will post it as a reply to this note.

Cheap DNA test kits
I'm sending this note out a day or so earlier than normal because Ancestry is running a special offer which expires at midnight on Monday night local time wherever you are. The Guild of One-Name Studies, a British charity, is now able to sell Ancestry kits at their sale price and still make a small margin for society funds. So I have reproduced their note below:
===================================
Ancestry are having a Black Friday sale across their four geographical areas. If you buy using the Guild’s affiliate link, you get the same reduced price plus the Guild gets some commission on the sale. Anyone can use these links so pass them onto friends and family!

The sale price and duration are different for each geographical area. The links are specific to the country.

UK £49 plus postage 23 to 30 November
https://prf.hn/click/camref:1101l4nxH

Australia $AUS 85 plus postage 24 to 30 November
https://prf.hn/click/camref:1100l4o5S

Canada $CAN 69 plus postage 26 to 30 November
https://prf.hn/click/camref:1101l4nVz

US $49 plus postage 26 to 30 November
https://prf.hn/click/camref:1100l4o5T
===========================================
Also, if you would like to buy the more specialized yDNA test (for men named House, Howse, Howes, etc only) about which I have talked in the past, these kits are also available direct from the Guild at their lowest price ever: £82, plus postage. If you are interested, go to this page,
https://one-name.org/dna-kits-available-from-the-guild/
then click on the link for the 37-marker Y-DNA test and you'll be taken to the Guild shop where you can pay direct in your own currency.

That's all folks. Thank you for your continued support. I hope you are able to celebrate the coming holiday period to the max despite whatever local restrictions may be upon you. All the best
Paul
mardler
Site Admin
Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Re: Putting our Howes in order - November 2020

Post by mardler »

I have since found the marriage certificate for Rose May Howes. It shows one detail we had missed:
her father was Charles Edwin Howes - a hardware warehouseman - deceased before 1916

I'm still none the wiser, however! Worth noting that fathers were sometimes marked as deceased in marriage registers if they had not actually existed, i.e., if the bride or groom had been illegitimate.
Paul
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