John Howell 's Genealogue

King Hywel, Nesta and Henry I

Corresponding with Gareth Howell in England who reminded me about Nesta who is descendant of Hywel Dda “The Good” King of Deheubarth (Wales). Gareth writes:

Many of the early Cambro-Norman invaders were related, as indicated in the descendant chart of Nesta, a Welsh princess. Nesta was known as one of the most beautiful women in Wales. Her father was Rhys ap Tewdwr Mawr, Prince of South Wales (1081-1093) She had children from (at least) three relationships: Stephen the Castellan (of Cardigan), Gerald FitzWalter (of Windsor) and Henry I (King of England)

We have not (yet) established a connection between our Howell who appear in Virginia in the 1500’s and King Hywel. We have however previously established a connection to Nesta’s husband, Henry I (Beauclerc) via his marriage to Matilda Editha Caenmoor of Scotland.  Their descendants are documented in the well researched Clopton genealogy. (Howell -> Heard -> Perrin -> Clopton -> Waldergrave -> Drury -> Calthorpe -> Stapleton -> de la Pole -> Stafford -> de Audley -> de Clare -> Plantagenet -> de Castile -> Plantagenet -> Beauclerc). 

Descendancy for Henry I Beauclerc, of England: John and Susan Howell's Family History Pages.

Big Progress on the Spencer genealogy

Spencer -> Howell

New found Spencer cousin Linda Portwood writes from Australia with the details of her breakthrough information on the Spencer line:

A great deal of our ancestry is on the internet so will point you in the right direction and you can discover it for yourself.   I was so amazed when I first found all that I did on the excellent website by John Palmer who's ancestors also came from the area where our family came from.  The website is www.wirksworth.org.uk  It is free to access, and much acclaimed,  I have authenticated  all of the information about our family by checking copies of original Parish Registers on microfilm at a local library,  and have found everything correct. The site is a goldmine of information.

 

Within the site you will find a section called "Inces Pedigrees"  and explanations about its origins and authenticity  etc. An amazing pedigree has been transcribed for our family, amongst many others.  An easy access to this is if you enter Timothy Spencer Ince Pedigrees into Google and it is the first Web Link to come up.  Click on this and it will take you to the Inces Pedigree pages within the www.wirksworth.org.uk website.  Some reference numbers are shown click on Page 083d and the Pedigree is shown, you will find William Spencer emigrated to Canada mentioned as a son of Timothy and Mary.  You will also see Thomas Spencer of Hurstfields in Alton Co Derby farmer, who is my ancestor.  

The above sources confirm that William Spencer (grandfather of Spencer Stone) was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England and then moved to Canada.  The new (to us) information shows William ancestors to his 3x great grandfather, James Spencer, baptized in the parish of Ashover in 1679 – 4 miles from Matlock. 

 

Many thanks to Linda for authenticating the Spencer information relevant to us, and for passing on this great breakthrough! 

Andrew McBride: John and Susan Howell's Family History Pages

McBride -> Howell

Thanks to John Guy Jackson, it looks like we have found the parents of John McBride, father of Elmina McBride who m. John Johnson Howell.  John Guy Jackson writes:

I am a gg-grandson of John McBride and Elizabeth C. 'Betsy' Veazey via their daughter Melissa Frances McBride (Elmina McBride Howell's sister); Melissa Frances married John Stephen Jackson in Taliaferro County on14 Apr 1840.

John McBride was the son of Andrew McBride and Phebe Boran; Betsy Veazey was the daughter of Abner Veazey and Delilah Rhodes. 'The Veazeys and The McBrides' are thoroughly documented in Chap. 9 of 'My Search For John Stephen Jackson, His Ancestors And His Descendants'.

I will be ordering a copy of Mr. Jackson’s book from the Augusta Genealogical Society, Inc., P. O. Box 3743 Augusta, GA 30914-3743. Tel: (706) 722-4073

Andrew McBride: John and Susan Howell's Family History Pages.

Ancestors of William Spencer

Spencer -> Howell

It looks like a new breakthrough on the Spencer line....thanks to this email from newly found 4^th cousin Linda Portwood.

I stumbled across your very interesting Howell Family Genealogy Pages, and was surprised to find your Ancestor, William Spencer. I think that we are distantly related, through my Great Great Great Grandfather Thomas Spencer, who I think was the elder brother of your ancestor William Spencer. I noted that you had no Ancestors for William Spencer. I have traced my Spencer Ancestry back to 1687, and would be willing to share this information with you. In my information, William Spencer is mentioned as emigrating to Canada, and later America. He is also a marriage witness at his brother Thomas Spencer's marriage in 1826. My Spencer ancestors lived in the area that you give as William's birthplace.

William Spencer: John and Susan Howell's Family History Pages.

Postcards from Austria

Davison -> Howell

Earlier this summer J. Spencer Howell visited with Betty Howell Traver who passed along some fascinating old postcards showing Nellie Davison's and Alfred Grunberger's home in Vienna, Austria circa 1907, as well as one of piano virtuoso Theodor Leschetizky.

These cards reinforce two big themes we find running through Nellie Davison's life, namely: politics (her father, her second husband), and music (her mother, herself, her first husband and his family.) The musical theme continued when Nellie's daughter Atze married Paul Passini, the great grandson of composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Alfred Grunberger was Nellie Davison's second husband, who in the Austrian government from 1920-1932 served as Minister of Public Nutrition, Minister of Commerce, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs ambassador to Paris and Madrid. Theodor Leschetizky, teacher of the famous Paderewski, was also Henry Howell's music teacher. Henry of course was Nellie's first husband.

Click to see reverse side and larger images

The card of Theodor Leschetizky was sent to Nellie's mother in law, Emma Berrien Heard Howell, in 1903 and the ones of her home were sent in 1907 to Helen F Kilpatrick, a cousin of Henry Howell, in White Plains after she and Henry were divorced.

Mary Johnson's photo

Howell <--> Howell

As mentioned previously, Betty Howell Traver provided us with an amazing photo of Mary Johnson (1786 - 1856). Mary was Betty's 2x Great Grandmother, and Henry Howell's Great Grandmother.

Mary Johnson "Polly"
When looking at this photo you realize that Mary's parents lived through the American Revolution, and that inevitably makes you ask "Is it really possible to have a photo of someone born in 1786?", and "When was photography actually invented?"

The stock answer is usually something like:

"In 1826 Nicéphore Niépce takes the first permanent photograph, a landscape that required an eight hour exposure."

But as far as the adoption of photos by the public it looks more like 1839. By 1839 daguerreotypes (an image formed on a silver-coated copper plate) were available to anyone with the means to afford them. In London, a daguerreotype portrait would cost about a guinea - approximately a weekly wage for an average worker. Each photo was a 'once only' affair, as there was no negative and therefore no way to make additional prints from the original image.

By the 1850s the concept of making a print from a positive or negative plate became the norm and things really took off. Calotypes were based on the concept of producing a positive print by means of a wet-plate negative. The Collodion process followed reducing exposure times to a few seconds. In 1850s there were 77 photographic galleries in New York alone, and prints in London sold for about one shilling (5p) according to Robert Leggat in A History of Photography.

By the 1880's the dry glass plate was in use and was easier to handle than the wet plate.

Kodak introduced the Brownie camera in 1900 and glass negatives were replaced by film.

As for our image of Mary Johnson...she appears to be in her 60's in the the image we have of her. In 1850, the year photography really started to take off, and was quite affordable, she was 64 years old. Still, she has to be one of the relatively few photographed that were born in the 1780's and we are very fortunate to have her image in 2007!

Sources: 1. Wikipedia.org. 2. "A History of Photography", Robert Leggat Ph.D.