Welcome to Howes Family Wiki

Rebecca Bangs is the best-supported identification. The 1908 Brewster Genealogy assigned Elizabeth to Hannah Prence, William Brewster’s granddaughter. George Ernest Bowman corrected the assignment in 1912. Thomas Howes Jr.’s 1675/76 will describes Elizabeth as Sparrow’s daughter living in his household. His widow Sarah Bangs Howes, Rebecca’s sister, named Elizabeth Sparrow as still living with her in 1682/83. Bowman compared those wills with the timing of Jonathan Sparrow’s remarriage and Elizabeth’s own marriage.

The 1706 Prence land deed names Hannah as mother of Richard Sparrow and Patience Paine. The 1708 Sparrow deed names John Sears and his wife Priscilla Freeman among Jonathan’s heirs. Priscilla’s mother was Elizabeth Sparrow. This closes the proposed Brewster route through Elizabeth. A separate route through another branch of Lydia’s ancestry remains open. A genealogy citing the 2014 Brewster Silver Book lists Richard and Patience under Hannah and Jonathan. The Silver Book page itself remains to be checked.

Howes wills, Mayflower Descendant 6, pp. 161 and 163 · Bowman’s analysis and deed transcriptions, vol. 14, pp. 1–5 and 193–203 · 1708 deed scan · Hannah Prence entry citing the Silver Book

Family recollection points broadly to Morningthorpe, Norfolk. It could reflect ancestors living in the village, a related branch there, or a family connection to the manor house. The recollection leaves the person, date and property open. The research question is whether an identifiable branch of Charlie Howes’s family can be traced to the village.

What we can document in the village. The parish register records Thomas Howes of Carleton marrying Tabitha Roope there on 25 April 1659. A 1698/99 baptism at St John the Baptist names Thomas, son of John and Elizabeth Howse. The Norfolk Record Office also catalogues a 1733 will naming a Thomas Howse of Morningthorpe (MS 14790). The 1698/99 baptism and 1733 will may concern the same man, a link to check in the full documents. These records establish a local Howes presence. The connection from that family to the Cape Cod branch remains unproved.

How the published manor story arose. RootsWeb source 243 is a contributed pedigree chart from Nancy D. Adams. Barbara Fleming’s Thomas Howes profile cites it for both the manor claim and the chest story. The source list gives no date or seventeenth-century record for the chart. An earlier published lead appears in Joshua Crowell Howes’s 1892 genealogy. It connects a Norfolk Thomas and Tabitha Roope to the manor. A critical genealogy recounts a related lead from about 1874–75, when the Rev. Thomas G. F. Howes showed a visitor family papers and suggested that an untraced Thomas might be the emigrant.

RootsWeb source 626 is William Jessup Cleaver’s 1989 genealogy, The Ancestry of Allen Grinnell Cleaver and Martha Irene Jessup. The passages transcribed by Fleming describe the Norfolk origin as possible and the proposed 1892 pedigree as unproved. No original record found so far places Thomas of Yarmouth at the manor before his emigration.

The dated records identify a separate Norfolk household. The Norfolk Record Office’s 1659 marriage settlement names the groom as Thomas, son of John Howse of Carleton Rode. It names Tabitha as Robert Roope of Tibenham’s daughter and John Roope of Morningthorpe as another party. The online pedigree calls Tabitha John Roope’s daughter and puts her a generation earlier. The Morningthorpe register records their wedding on 25 April 1659 and describes the groom as a bachelor from Carleton. By then, the emigrant Thomas was already established in Massachusetts with his family. A 1688 Stratton Hall court entry records John Howse’s admission under John Roope’s will. The Y-DNA study supports investigating wider kinship and leaves Thomas’s father and home unresolved.

What the parish search found. I searched the FreeREG transcriptions of Morningthorpe St John the Baptist for 1557–1639. Howes, Howse, Howys and Hawes returned no exact entries. The two uncertain entries were marriages with an unread spouse surname. The index did return the 25 October 1599 burial of a John Roope. A Carleton Rode register transcript records a Thomas, son of John Howse, baptized on 6 May 1632. His age rules him out as the adult Yarmouth settler and makes him a plausible match for the 1659 groom.

What could establish the connection. Compare the full 1663 will of John Howse of Carleton Rode (MS 14778), John Roope’s 1685 will (NCC Calthorpe 274), the 1688 court roll and the 1733 will for named relatives and property transfers. Read the early pages of Morningthorpe’s parish register (PD 56) alongside nearby parishes for Thomas with Mary or their older sons, Joseph and Thomas. A documented shared ancestor would establish kinship with a Morningthorpe branch. A record that actually locates a direct ancestor in the village would establish residence. Ownership or occupancy of the manor house would require evidence identifying that specific property.

1733 will of Thomas Howse of Morningthorpe · 1698/99 baptism transcript · John Roope’s 1685 will · Archived source 243 · Archived source 626 · Archived RootsWeb Thomas profile · Archived proposed parents · 1892 pedigree, pp. 4–6 · Critical genealogy · 1659 settlement catalogue · 25 April 1659 marriage transcript · 1688 court roll catalogue · Norfolk parish register guide · Morningthorpe transcription coverage · 1599 John Roope burial transcript · Carleton Rode baptism transcripts, PD 254/1 · Y-DNA study

The Dennis Historical Society published a photograph of the English oak chest and reported that it received the chest as a gift in 2016 after 53 years on loan. The Society associates it with Thomas and Mary Howes and a voyage around 1637 aboard a later ship called Mayflower. The exact voyage remains a family and museum tradition.

Chest photograph and gift announcement · Josiah Dennis Manse Museum · Critical study of Thomas Howes

The grant and land-division records establish Thomas Howes’s civic ties to Anthony Thacher and John Crow, later Crowell. Later marriages linked branches of these families. For example, Joseph Crowell married Sarah Howes of the Jeremiah branch in 1723, and Peter Thacher married Betty Howes. The precise lines from Charlie to either fellow grantee remain open.

Town of Yarmouth history · Crowell family genealogy · Thacher branch and marriages