Going round the HOWZEs - April 2017

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

Going round the HOWZEs - April 2017

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Hello everyone. Hope your month has been fun. Mine has! It started at the annual conference of the Guild of One-Name Studies in England, where I was re-elected chairman for a third (and final) year. when you think how nutty you have to be to do serious genealogy and then square it, you begin to have some idea how nutty (and yet serious) the good folks in the Guild are! I've said it before, and will again, that Guild members are the single most collaborative group of people I have ever come across and it's been a real privilege to serve as the chairman.

After a day or so's rest it was off to Birmingham for the WhoDoYouThinkYouAre?Live conference/exhibition, the UK's largest. I spent three days on my feet all day at the Guild's stand (that's "booth" for our North American readers). If I was tired after the Guild's conference, I was exhausted after WDYTYA! As usual, it waa a great pleasure to meet people from our study: Chris Howse, Brian Howse, Steve Pratt, Heather Law and Karen Prior, who now has her own One-Name Study, into the name Blazier

My month ended very pleasantly this evening in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My wife and I got to play the proud parents here on Friday as our older son defended his doctoral thesis in molecular biology and was granted his PhD! While here, too, we've done a few touristy things, including a flight in a hot-air balloon this morning. Fabulous fun. Recommended.

In between all the excitement, we managed to add another 900+ people to the database this month, finishing well over 121,000 people in reconstructed families.

Lewis Howes - entrepreneur
I have given up TV in favour of my One-Name Study, apart from watching the occasional sporting event. I have found that TV reduces my productivity by over 50%! I do like to keep up with current events, though. So I listen to podcasts or live radio. I don't take in every word but I can still concentrate on my study. Sometimes something grabs my attention immediately, as did hearing te American radio host, Glenn Beck, introduce Lewis Howes. Glenn Beck is often viewed as a political firebrand, but this interview demonstrates his other sides as he talks with Lewis about how he changed his life around so dramatically.

Lewis is a fascinating young man whom I met once in London. His brother, Christian, is a world-renowned jazz violinist whom himself had a chequered youth. So I recommend watching the first four minutes of Lewis's interview here:
http://www.glennbeck.com/2017/04/24/wha ... rd-knocks/
If you want more, the whole thing is available in audio only here:
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/audio/ ... wis-howes/

Alex Howes - Professional Cyclist
Another young American Howes was in the news in the month. Alex Howes started this year's European cycling season with a big win in the Spanish mountains, entitling him to wear the fetching polkadot jersey pictured below. Does anyone else wear polkadots these days? Not my choice!
AlexHowes.JPG
AlexHowes.JPG (88.67 KiB) Viewed 1709 times
DNA
Do you have an older Howes, House , Howze person in your family? If you haven't already, please do get them to consider taking a DNA test with Ancestry or FTDNA's "family finder". I wish I had asked my dad to test before he died. Think of it this way: your DNA is a meld of what your ancestors gave you. Your parents are the best link you have to your ancestors' DNA. Your parents' DNA will match more people than yours will. So, get them tested and then use the test results to find distant cousins. Such people may have photographs of your ancestors, or they may be able to confirm your research or help you realize that you've goofed or they may just have a lead that will help you break down that elusive brick wall.

Further, if you have an aging male relative with no obvious male heirs, it's not too far to say for such people that their DNA is a world heritage item! When they die, it will die with them and succeding family historians might have difficulty tracking their Howes line It mght well help to have their yDNA stored for later use. So, please would you consider asking them to take a yDNA test with FTDNA? We have well over 100 males who have taken such a test so far and very few of them yet match with other men who have tested.

My own situation? Am I a Howes?
I don't like to ask others to do what I have not done myself. So recently I took a yDNA test myself. So far the results are intriguing! Remember, yDNA is supposed to track surnames very closely. . . . So far, I have:
- no matches to anyone else named Howes, Howse, House or even Howe
- two very close matches to men in South Carolina named Edwards
- one close match to a man named Wiseman who is descended from a man known to have lived in Norwich in the 1830's and 1840s . . . and was a non-blood relative of my own family (or at least we think it is non-blood!)
I will keep you informed about the progress I'm making at figuring out how I get on with the resolution of these intriguing possiblities.

Remember that through the Guild, I can obtain relatively cheap tests from FTDNA. Sometimes you can get them for less at a major show where FTDNA is appearing. Let me know if you are interested.

Kind regards and thanks for your continuing support.
Paul
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