August 2009

Still almost monthly!
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mardler
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Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

August 2009

Post by mardler »

It’s been a bit quiet recently, hasn’t it, fellow truthseekers? I skipped last month's update deliberately because, well, it’s the summer for most of us and we’ve all slowed down a bit. I’ve been indulging one of my other hobbies (sailing) at weekends and I hope those of you who enjoy the outdoors have been able to get out despite the marked lack evidence of global warming on either side of the Atlantic this year!

Despite my other interests, I am managing to do a little work most evenings. I ran an update to the online database yesterday and can now confirm that we have a database with over 15,000 people in it. Once again a special thanks to everyone who has contributed information over past months.
We have signed up 4 more people in the last month and now stand at 108 registrants.

For myself, I’ve been concentrating mostly on the Midlands of England. Regular readers may know that I am a member of the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS). Members run something called “marriage challenges” whereby members volunteer to look up marriage certificate details between 1837 and 1912 in a particular registration district for other members. In the last month, I have had close to 100 marriages looked up for me in Pershore in Worcestershire, Kings Norton in Birmingham, Berkhamstead in Berkshire and St George’s Hanover Square in London. It’s fantastic value; if I had bought 100 marriage certificates, they would have cost me £700 (over US$1,000). Each marriage generates a family group, which I then look up in the census records and go forwards and backwards as far as I can. I’ve done that for all the Pershore marriages and am now filling in the gaps for other Howes/Howse families in Worcestershire.
In addition, I was kindly sent a family tree by Albert Howes, whose parents were born in the nineteenth century, and whose family hails from Otley in Yorkshire, having previously moved there from Suffolk. Albert was kind enough to send me a picture of a family reunion last year too. I am very grateful and I promise that I will post the picture on the website soon.

In fact, there are several updates to the site that I need to get on with now we have reached the milestone figure I mentioned above. Other people have sent me information which I have yet to publish.

I must admit, though, that I am tempted to gather some more data because thanks to the National Library of Wales I have access again to the British Library/Gale database of nineteenth century British newspapers! It’s a fantastic database with two million pages of fully searchable text! As you might imagine, there are wonderful reports of events from Trafalgar right through to the Boer War and there are 18,000 references to the word Howes, many of which are now giving rise to extra pieces of information about individuals in the database. Normally, you have to pay or be a university student to use this database but some libraries have it available free to their researchers. I understand it’s free to use in Germany and perhaps it is available in your area too. Look out for it locally near you.

Thanks also to my GOONS membership I am building a large array of websites that are worth checking for Howes’es and Howse’s. If you think you might have time to help search them, please do let me know.

Regards to everyone
Paul
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