Our monthly progress
I’ve had a super month, I will admit. I took a week off at the beginning of the month to attend the Society of Genealogists’ Summer School, which this year was about 18th century English and Welsh records. I did this in anticipation of our needing more expertise in this area as our study matures. Every day involved three hours of lectures from Else Churchill, their chief genealogist, and one hour of interaction with the other attendees. The course notes are very rich indeed. People attended from several different countries. Given the content, the cost was very reasonable, about the cost of five marriage certificates! If you see an advert for it next year, buy with both hands!
Work on our marriage file progresses. I’ve now completed the first 50 years from 1837 to 1980. Remember, what I’m doing is merging in the English and Welsh index information and adding full details for marriages where online data is now available where it wasn’t when we first did the research. Unfortunately, the number of marriages increases by year as the population increases! So expect progress to continue to slow a little more in the coming weeks. I’m not keeping track of additions to the database but conservatively, I reckon I’ve added full details for over 1,500 marriages.
Thanks to the continued efforts of my cousin Ian, we added over 300 people this month, finishing at 206,713 people.
Stonesfield, Oxfordshire
Immediately after I sent last month’s newsletter I had a lovely note back from Simon Howes with several photographs, one of which was of that beautiful old English cottage. Simon lives in Somerset in England where his grandparents were evacuated during World War 2. Stimulated by our collective work at HowesFamilies.com he has traced the footsteps of his forebears from Somerset back to East London and thence back to the village of Stonesfield in Oxfordshire. While there recently, Simon took that picture of a house at the bottom of Laughton’s Hill. It was built by Thomas Howes the son of John (Simon’s 8x great-grandfather) in 1722. Here’s a picture of the builder’s plaque to prove it!
- Stonesfieldplaque1.jpg (56.95 KiB) Viewed 641 times
Who is the British bird expert, John Howes, working in China?
My daily google web search for our surname comes up with some extraordinary items sometimes. We are everywhere! Does anyone know this man? He has what looks to be a fascinating job. See this article in the Chinese English-language Xinhua news service:
https://english.news.cn/20230711/253a25 ... 777/c.html
Another small puzzle
Finally, I note that we have a creative soul in our midst! John House tells me that he has just finished publishing his first novel. It's called Durnovaria - that's the Roman name for Dorchester in Dorset. It's about a modern day soldier who is transported back 2,000 years, and his adventures in Roman times. Here's the link if you would like to learn more and maybe even buy a copy:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/DURNOVARIA-vic ... ref=sr_1_1
Good luck with sales, John!
Thanks for your continued support, folks
Paul