Great oaks from tiny acorns...

Welcome to HowesFamilies.com, the site that keeps on growing. We now cover the following names: HOUSE, HOWES, HOWS and HOWSE, which are frequently variant spellings of the same name.

On the links page there are links to several global surname distribution websites. Taken together, what they show is that Southern England is the main source of our name, with individual concentrations for Howes in Norfolk and Northamptonshire, Howse in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, and House in Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire. When you look at all of them together, it is perfectly obvious that these fit together into a coherent whole. My suspicion at this point is that we are separated only by strong regional accents! For more detail, click the map in the upper right corner.

There are now nearly 28,000 individuals named on the site, still a fraction of the ultimate population. We are redesigning the site, with additional pages and information about our names. In particular, we now have the start of a new set of pages devoted to notable people with our name. We have two Victoria Cross winners, several notable soldiers, a couple of knights, ship's captains, authors and a film actress among us, for instance. If you have additional suggestions, do let us know.

Without really promoting the site, interest has been strong and worldwide. We have OVER 220 members registered from over a dozen countries, including Argentina and Malaysia. After only eighteen months we are already one of the larger sites devoted to a single name anywhere. What seems to makes this site particularly interesting and useful is that we have built family groups as we have grown. This study is not just about collecting ancestors' names much as some people collect stamps, but about connecting people, literally. We've had several people who were able to take their research back 4 generations or more and many others able to renew contact with parts of their extended family where contact had been lost (us included!).

We welcome all suggestions for change and improvement, and especially more data! If you'd like to join us and collaborate on making this site absolutely THE resource for all people named House, Howes, Hows and Howse worldwide, please use the contact button at bottom right.

Paul Howes

Paul, I want to help. What can I do?

Thanks for asking! Four things, please:
- register on the site so we can stay in touch - towards top-left on this page
- send your own tree - GEDCOMs are best, but anything will do
- consider whether you can help. Go to November 2008's newsletter here and look at the kinds of thing we need. What gives you energy?
- tell your relatives!
Thank you

Final note: this study is done under the auspices of the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS). Our ultimate goal is to collect as many occurrences of our name as we can find around the world. Under GOONS rules we are obliged to respond to all queries. We'd do that anyway but if we don't live up to it, please feel free to let them know at www.one-name.org.