Going round the HOWZEs - February 2018

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

Going round the HOWZEs - February 2018

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Hello everyone. It's been kind of a quiet month relative to last month. We've added only half the number of people, about 800, that we added in January. I wish it were all down to February's being a shorter month, but no. Reminds me of what the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, once said when asked what was most likely to knock his government off course, "Events, dear boy! Events!" Too many other things happened! Among those were two spectacular events further South in Florida: the launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and the Daytona500, both marvellous events but they kept me from the study. So lucky that we no longer have snowbound winters. Thanks to my co-workers for carrying more of the load this month and thank goodness I didn't go to RootsTech this year!

North Florida Genealogy Conference
Talking of Florida, we have a local conference in Jacksonville this time of year. I know several of our correspondents live within 100 miles from here. If you are free on March 10, please do consider coming along. I will be giving two presentations, one on this very study and one on "British Records from your armchair - records after 1937." Check out the details at https://nfgenealogyconference.org/.

Thomas Sherburne/Sherbourne Howes
WW! Dog Tag
WW! Dog Tag
TSHowesDogTag.jpg (230.64 KiB) Viewed 2118 times
Do you recognize this name? Can anyone help us find the family of Thomas S Howes of Dennis, Massachusetts, please? The owner of the WorldWarOne dog tag pictured above contacted me today and he would like to return it to Thomas's family. Apparently, his mother purchased it at a yard sale some twenty years ago! I don't want to give too much away but it appears that Thomas had a grandson who may live in Connecticut. Can you help? Write to me at paul at howesfamilies.com. Thanks in advance for any help you can be.

Howes/House/Howse family reunion
Correspondent Bill Howes comes from a unique family, I believe. His family started off with the surname of House in the Upton area of Slough, West of London, England. Without the family moving very far, in three generations the surname went through two iterations, first to Howse and then to Howes! Bill's great-grandfather, William Robert Howes was in the Army and suddenly started the family travelling, ending his days as a retired Army Major in Dublin, Ireland. Bill's grandfather, Henry Austin Howes was also in the Army and consequently travelled with his family, through India to end his days in Canada. Amazingly enough, Henry and his father share another characteristic, they both rose through the Army ranks to be promoted to the Officer ranks. It's very rare except in wartime and incredibly rare to happen to father and son. Anyway, more than enough background from me!

Bill wrote to me asking that I tell you about their family reunion: descendants of William Robert Howes (1856-1945) and Lucy Marion Aldridge (1865-1946) are invited to a day of getting acquainted or re-acquainted, swapping stories, exchanging old photos, building the family trees and a pot luck supper. The reunion will take place on Saturday, June 23, 2018 in Midhurst, Ontario – an hour’s drive north of Toronto. Anyone interested in attending is asked to contact Bill Howes at bill.howes@hotmail.com.

Howes Centenarian passes
I just wanted to note the passing a year ago of Phyllis Robb, née Howes at age 102. She and her father were life-long supporters of Bolton Wanderers Football Club. I hadn't spotted it at the time because her maiden name was not on her obituary. I think we picked it up because of an In Memoriam post and from correspondent Michael Kay. Michael tells us she was in the middle of the Burnden Park disaster in 1946 when 33 football fans died in a crush on the terraces with hundreds of other people injured. Somewhere there is a picture on the internet of Phyllis being passed over the heads of those people crushed to help her escape. She survived until the 70th anniversary when she was presented with a commomorative shirt by the club, as described in the article here: https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2017/januar ... llis-robb/.

Certificate fund usage
We used some of our certificate fund this month, buying a total of 20 certicates to bridge a few gaps between families. Mostly we buy marriage certificates but sometimes a birth cert has to do! We've had delivery of 3 electronic birth "uncertificates" and one death, and are now expecting another 16 marriage certs to arrive in the mail in the next few days. I also finally got around to scanning some 50-60 certificates that I had bought last summer and my colleague Mike in Spain has put them all online. Thanks for being there, Mike!
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