November 2012 - Howse that?

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

November 2012 - Howse that?

Post by mardler »

Happy new month, everyone. Some interesting stuff below, I hope. Surprising number of references to the Guild of One-Name Studies this month.

Book mention for howesfamilies.com
I'm very pleased to say that we received half a page of coverage in a new book, The Surnames Handbook by Debbie Kennett, a Guild member who studies the name Cruwys. The book is, in its own words, "a guide to surname research in the 21st century". It's on my bed-side table . . . and I am reading it!

New website
Not much free stuff to report this month. However, if you have Irish ancestry a new site came to my attention that you might be interested in: http://www.titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie.
This searchable site covers lands subject to tithes in rural areas from 1821-1837.

John Corner/Dorothy House
This couple managed to be married twice and buried twice! They obtained two licences to marry in the 1780s and used them both. On both occasions, they were recorded as single. See Dorothy's record here: http://howesfamilies.com/getperson.php? ... ee=Onename

Corner is another name being studied within the Guild of One-Name Studies. Ann McDonald, the founder of that study thinks that there may have been something wrong with the first marriage, in St Dunstans in the City of London. I'm not so sure. I suspect that they eloped the first time around and then married "properly" a second time at St James in Westminster. My reasons for thinking that are the fact that her father, a wealthy wine merchant, was a witness to the second marriage and that John was a sea captain - he may have been about to embark on a voyage and wanted to secure his beloved before he left. I know, I'm a hopeless romantic! Can anyone figure out why they married twice?

If you're interested, there are some VERY interesting notes under Dorothy's record and that of her father. Turns out Harry House was a big Whig (pun intended) who was "the father of the Whig Club" in London and nominated Charles James Fox as a Whig candidate for Parliament. Charles James Fox is worth looking up on Wikipedia - he supported the American colonists and opposed slavery.

To return to our story, Harry's private life must have been the matter of some turmoil. We do not yet know who his wife was but we found from a court case in 1829 that Dorothy and her sister were illegitimate. No wonder we couldn't find their baptism records under House!

Buried twice? Yes, their remains were moved from St Martin in the Fields to Kensal Green cemetery in 1859.

Norwich City Sanitation (=Health) Department records
I managed to spend three more days in the Norfolk Record Office in my home town of Norwich recently and have now completed look ups for births as far as 1942. I've managed to grab records for well over 700 births so far, an equivalent of buying US $10,000-worth of birth certificates! A reminder that if you have Howes or House family in Norwich I'm happy to share details of birth dates and places with you, because in most cases you won't see them due to our 100-year rule. Once I have finished the births (1960) I will start looking through the death records, which cover a slightly longer period.

Childerhouse/Howes links
Childerhouse is yet another One-Name Study and over recent months I've had a lot of contact with Barry Walker who runs it. When I read that he had written that the source for his name is Besthorpe in Norfolk, suddenly something clicked. The Besthorpe area had the single highest concentration of the Howes name anywhere on the planet for many years. Turns out too that frequent variants in the spelling of that name are Childerhowes, Childerhowse and Childerhows. At this point it's only a theory that our names are somehow connected but the circumstantial evidence is strong that Childerhouse comes from 'Child of House'.

David and Sybil Gray
Our thanks go to this generous couple who sent in two connected trees for Howes in the Wymondham area, containing several hundred people in total and a file with about 2,000 Howes references from that area. We already had some of what they sent in but they have been able to add a lot of extra details and resolve a couple of mysteries, one of which involved John Childerhouse Howes. If you have this man in your tree, do take a look.

We are always happy to receive contributions no matter how small but this one, I'm sure you agree, merits special mention.

How might Guild members help you?
Think about all the surnames you have in your own family tree. How much do you know about all of them? Are you stuck on some? Guild members study a particular surname and become experts in it. Most studies are smaller than this one, though a good 25 or so are larger. Suggestion: for some of the names in your study go to the http://www.one-name.org and type in a few surnames into the box. If one of your family names is being studied, try contacting the member and see what happens. Most studies are far from finished but you never know: they may be able to help.

For the record
The GED file that we use to update our site every week is now over 2 MILLION lines! We added 1,600 names during the month and scorched past 68,000 people in the database. We also went past 650 people registered on the site.

I say this every month, but really do mean it. Thank you for your continued support.
Helen Carbonaro
Posts: 3
Joined: January 21st, 2010, 9:47 am

Re: November 2012 - Howse that?

Post by Helen Carbonaro »

Thank you Paul and Ian for all you efforts on our behalf, it is greatly appreciated.
mardler
Site Admin
Posts: 306
Joined: October 4th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Re: November 2012 - Howse that?

Post by mardler »

And thanks back, Helen. Thinking of you down there as we have snow still on the ground from a week ago makes me dream of summer!
Paul
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