October 2011 - Howes that?

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

October 2011 - Howes that?

Post by mardler »

Dear everyone. It's been three dizzy years since we set up this website. I keep waiting for the pace to slacken but it just steadfastly refuses!

This month, we have quite a few major developments:
  • we added over 2,000 more people and have now surpassed 50,000 people in reconstructed family groups
  • we are within one or two people of 400 registrants on the site
  • we have information on both spouses for more than 1/3 of all the 24,000 House, Howes, Howse and Hows marriages in England and Wales from 1837-1950 – that's a useful overall measure of our overall progress
  • our volunteer force is growing. Mike from Spain has added many new images to the site and provided more references to the ones we already have. Judith is helping trawl through the Commonwealth War Graves website – this month sees the first fruits of her efforts appear. Finally, Sue (who has no Howes relatives) has recently contributed much rich information on baptisms, marriages and burials in the Bristol area and is now working through probate records for us.
  • with the help of a kind gentleman in Germany, I hope we have now overcome gmail's restriction of 300 mails per hour and consequently fixed the problem of not everyone receiving these monthly updates.
  • we have upgraded our core database and bought more storage space on our ISP's servers.
With the passing of the 50,000 person milestone, I've been thinking about how to give more publicity to our efforts and I'm pleased to say that:
  • I've been asked to write an article for the (UK) Family Tree Magazine on the study and progress to date. All being well, the article should appear in the February 2012 edition of the magazine.
  • Also in February, I've been asked to make a presentation to the Who Do You Think You Are exhibition in London at the end of the month entitled “How has the internet changed the game?  Testing the limits with a huge One-Name Study
We said at the outset that this is a “team game” and the involvement of the additional people proves it. Thanks to all of those mentioned above, to those of you who have shared your own family data and especially to my cousin Ian who keeps me on the straight and narrow.

One final thing: Family Tree Magazine has asked me to include some quotes from people who have used the site. Have we helped you? Have we surprised you? If you have any comments for a wider audience, please do send them to me at paul@howesfamilies.com
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