Records and research
Follow the sources behind the Howes family tree. The review covers the published pedigree, colonial connections, Norfolk research, voyages and Howes Oil. Some records survive as transcriptions or reported findings.
Evidence guide
- Record evidence
- A record or its transcription supports the stated detail.
- Corroborated sources
- Multiple sources support the identification or account.
- Family testimony
- The relationship or account comes from an identified family member.
- Compiled genealogy
- A reconstruction used for the relationship. Some underlying records still need review.
- Open research lead
- A proposed identity or relationship with an unresolved gap.
These labels apply to the stated claim. A documented event in someone’s life can coexist with an open connection to the Howes tree.
What the records support
Record transcripts
The Cape Cod family
Plymouth Colony records place Thomas Howes in Yarmouth by 1639. His 1665 will names Mary and their sons Joseph, Thomas and Jeremiah. Thomas Jr.’s will and the 1684 guardianship entry identify the next household. The English birthplace, passenger ship, maiden surname Burr and story of Jeremiah’s birth at sea still need contemporary evidence.
Family testimony, index and census research
The route from Allison to Charlie
Charlie identifies Andrew as his father and Mike as his grandfather. The Sioux Falls business history identifies Mike as Ivan’s son and Andy as Tom’s brother. Mike’s letter, on page 3 of the July 2019 Dennis Historical Society newsletter, identifies his grandfather as Horace Anthony, son of Allison. South Dakota’s birth index supplies Horace Howes and Nannie Snow as Ivan’s parents. The town archivist’s report identifies eight-year-old Horace in Allison and Mary’s 1880 Omaha household. The full birth certificate and census schedule would give this chain better citations. The alternate Horace O. initial in an online tree remains unverified.
Compiled parentage
Jonathan, David and Levi
The 1892 Howes genealogy and the Dennis Conservation Land Trust place David as Jonathan’s son. The town register names David and Hannah as Levi’s parents, and Levi and Deborah as William’s. The reported 1742 will of Jonathan has no verified reference in this archive. Search Barnstable probate under Howes, Howse and Hows, extending through the reported death in 1750 and using nearby land and court records.
Compiled relationship
William and Lydia
The published tree traces both parents of Allison to Thomas and Mary. Counting those generations produces fourth cousins once removed. The same pedigree identifies Lydia, daughter of Isaiah and Lydia Chapman, as William’s second wife. William’s first wife was also named Lydia Howes. A contemporary marriage entry or intention for the second marriage remains open.
Probate and compiled descent
Edward Bangs, twice
The Plymouth records establish Edward’s presence among the 1623 arrivals. His will refers to a married daughter Howes and deceased daughter Rebecca’s children. Family and historical-society sources identify Sarah as Jonathan’s mother. Bowman’s probate and deed analysis identifies Rebecca as Elizabeth Sparrow’s mother. The two routes have 11 and 13 parent-to-child steps from Edward to Charlie. Each route still inherits the reservations on its compiled generations.
Marriage and stepfamily links
The Sparrow, Mayflower and Southworth links
The Howes wills and Prence and Sparrow deeds support Rebecca Bangs as Elizabeth’s mother. Hannah Prence Mayo, a Brewster granddaughter, was Elizabeth’s stepmother. Alice Carpenter Southworth Bradford names Constant, her son by Edward Southworth, in her will. Her marriage to William Bradford made him Constant’s stepfather. The Collier and Southworth marriages connect the family to the Brewster, Alden and Mullins households. The 1623 Anne arrivals and the 1620 Mayflower passengers belong to different voyages. Direct descent from a 1620 passenger remains open.
Documented events, reconstructed relationships
Sears, Willard and Harvard
The proposed fifth-cousin-five-times-removed connection to Richard Warren Sears depends on the Dryden reconstruction. The 2020 study ties the same 50-acre parcel in Sarah Bumpus Sears Damon’s will and Richard and Susan Sears’s 1835 deed, then adds family and census evidence. The original images still warrant comparison. Scituate baptism records, as transcribed, identify George as Deborah Willard’s father. A Maryland court deed documents George in the Patuxent. George’s half brother Simon was a founder of English Concord. Harvard confirms Simon’s son Samuel held the vice presidency while running the college from 1701 to 1707. George’s wife and the proposed Dunster link remain unidentified.
Compiled links and open leads
Other colonial and prominent relatives
The Mayo family history identifies Elizabeth as John Mayo’s daughter. Joseph Howes appears in Mayo’s 1676 estate settlement. The Wing and Bachiler route still needs confirmation from church and probate records. The Howes and Sears compilations support the proposed links to circus manager Seth Benedict Howes and hymn writer Edmund Hamilton Sears. The Osborn Howes shipping connection is reported in a county biography. A relationship to a Declaration signer has yet to be traced. Verify exact cousin degrees and spouses in the underlying records.
Documented cousin branch
Moody Howes and the Mayflower
The Mayflower Society’s Patriots Project lists Moody Howes of Southeast, New York, as a descendant of William Brewster through his mother Deborah Sears and of John Howland and John Tilley through his father Thomas Howes’s mother Sarah Gorham. Moody’s wife Hannah Snow is listed as a descendant of Stephen Hopkins. The 1892 Howes genealogy and 1886 Putnam County history trace Moody’s Howes line through Jeremiah, son of Thomas and Mary of Yarmouth. These Mayflower paths belong to Moody’s branch. A separate parent-to-child path is required to establish Charlie’s descent from any of the same passengers.
Open questions and conflicting claims
English records, unresolved American connection
Morningthorpe, Besthorpe and Carleton Rode
The 1601 deed places Robert Howse of Besthorpe in a Carleton Rode land transaction. The 1659 settlement identifies the later Thomas as John Howse’s son and Tabitha Roope as Robert Roope’s daughter. They married in Morningthorpe after the other Thomas was already established in Yarmouth. The 1663 will file MS 14778 is catalogued, with copies listed as unfit for production. The 1646 and 1660 land entries and reported 1618 probate still need full texts. RootsWeb source 243 points to a contributed pedigree. Source 626 is a published genealogy treating the link as possible. A named ancestor needs a documented connection to the village before a manor claim can be made.
Research leads and tradition
DNA, arms and the Howes Chest
The public Y-DNA comparison covered descendants of Thomas’s sons Joseph and Jeremiah and a British tester with a proposed Besthorpe line. It provides a lead on a shared paternal ancestor. The study cannot give that ancestor a name or establish residence in Morningthorpe, and it did not include Charlie’s Thomas Jr. line. The arms plate in the 1892 genealogy and the Norfolk memorial require a proved descent from an armiger before claiming personal entitlement. The Dennis Historical Society documents the Howes Chest’s donation and reports a voyage tradition. The chest is evidence of a family object, with no contemporary passenger record connecting it to the crossing.
Published voyage account, official return and open gaps
Calcutta, the painting and Allison’s shipwreck
The Dennis Historical Society names Allison and Levi as captains of the Belle of the West and Starlight and recounts their 1862 return from Calcutta. Its account gives the 12-hour interval. An 1864 diplomatic dispatch separately records the Belle as Fiery Cross in an 1863 Calcutta transaction. Nan DeVita’s painting depicts the voyage and the location of the original remains open. Emily Lincoln’s letter, described by Brewster’s archivist, supports Allison’s survival of a wreck near Cuba. The Ellen Dickie is a candidate from the route and timing. The report does not identify Allison as captain. No verified Allison voyage to Hong Kong or China has surfaced.
Eyewitness letter and contemporary press
Hong Kong, Benjamin and Lucy
Lucy’s letter describes the attack on the Lubra after it left Hong Kong in 1866. It describes Benjamin as well known locally and gives Lucy’s impression of the funeral’s size. Contemporary newspapers corroborate the attack and killing, and the cemetery index records Benjamin and infant Genevieve in the same plot, 37/02/14. The precise chronology varies among sources. A funeral attendance count, named mourners, commercial contacts and the full cargo manifest remain open. Lucy says the attackers demanded gold and opium, and that both she and Benjamin denied having either aboard. That exchange does not establish the cargo.
Census images
Carrie and Charles Wesley
The 1900 and 1910 federal schedules each show Carrie B. with Charles W. Howes and report zero children born and zero living. The 1900 household additionally includes her mother, Lucy J. Harper. These entries cover the dates of the enumerations. The later institutional entries attributed to Carrie are leads and cannot substitute for the 1958 obituary or a record of Charles’s household.
Voyage evidence and separate research leads
Other China connections
The 1876 Hong Kong Daily Press records the Swallow arriving from Newcastle, Australia, under B. C. Howes and lists coal. A later account based on Rebecca Wood Howes’s diary gives wool. Keep the conflict open pending the original diary and the manifest. Wheaton holds Roger and Mary Fickett Howes’s mission papers. Their family relationship, Gertrude Howe’s relationship, and the proposed Field connection are unresolved.
Census research and unproved links
South Dakota and the separate Iowa leads
Brewster’s archivist reports that Allison was a cattle dealer in Omaha in 1880 and a stockman in Pierre in 1910. Stockman describes work with livestock. The records cited here do not establish ranch ownership or a surviving house. George Roscoe and James Morgan Howes remain separate Iowa and South Dakota research leads. Their proposed connection to each other and to Allison and Ivan needs records that name relatives.
Newspapers and court record
Howes Oil and Gas Stop
The April 1938 advertising and later reporting support the early Howes Oil station at 12th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls. A street number, station photograph and ownership of all advertised Conoco outlets are open. The 1996 court opinion records the 1977 sublease to Howes Oil, assignment to Mike, construction of the station and operation by Dan Vrooman. An October 1977 report gives 3000 East 26th Street. The opening advertisement and exact opening day remain open. Holiday’s 16 conversions in 2013 and Couche-Tard’s 17-store acquisition in 2020 were separate events.