"Thank you, Oliver"
Oliver Howes was out walking with his dad, Julian, in central London when he spotted the man-hole cover in the pavement (that's a sidewalk for our American readers!). Top marks, young man - doing just what a wolf cub should do - I'd give him an observer's badge just for that!
Julian wrote in asking whether we could figure out the source as the address given (a short walk away) is now a Mediterranean deli! Within just a few hours, Julian and I, with the help of a few members of the Guild of One-Name Studies (whose Facebook group I had consulted) had figured out that the cover was likely for a coal-hole, allowing deliveries of coal direct to a house basement, and that the covers often have the supplier's name on them. In this case, a Guild member rapidly spotted that the supplier was James Howes who had two addresses in a 1911 Post Office directory of London. One of the addresses was where we had him living and the other on Seymour Place was his ironmongery shop. QED! Beyond even that, I learned that there are people who study manhole covers - they're called operculists - not a word I expect to use again in my next 72 years!
So, who else can match Oliver's feat by spotting an unusual Howes, House, Howse, etc sign?!
"Toowoomba is too nice!"
Is it?! It's been a very quiet month in the press for people with our name. However, one gem appeared in a magazine called "Your Pregnancy" about the move of a Howes family from South Africa to Queensland and how it's marvellous that they're "only three hours' drive" from the beach and they've found a 9-acre spread for the horses. You can read the full story here.
https://www.pressreader.com/south-afric ... 7333901934
"Only three hours' drive" is already farther away from the beach than almost every other Australian! No offence intended to the Howes family themselves. Please get in touch if you know them. The piece reads to me like lazy journalism. And quite why the story merits a place in "Your Pregnancy" eludes me! ! Mrs Howes wasn’t giving away any news of future additions to our clan!
Puzzle Corner
We ordered a few certificates this month. Virtually all of them resulted in the joining together of two branches of Howes/House people in our file. Unfortunately, this one didn’t. Can anyone figure out who Victor Edward Howes or his dad, Christopher William Howes actually were? It’s amazing to us that we can’t identify a Captain in the British Army, when there is so much data available these days. Are we missing something obvious? It’s happened before, after all!
- VEHowes19410802.jpg (158.04 KiB) Viewed 402 times
We finished our New Zealand project, and now have 1,850 people from that country, having added 1,100 people in a couple of months. Our thanks once again to correspondent Janice who provided us with a first pass of data.
We finished the month on 221,043 people having added nearly 700 people during the month. We now have almost 5,000 images on our site and are always ready to add more. If you have any certificates or pictures of House/Howes people do send’em on in.
Thanks for your continued support, folks