I started my BOWNE project in 1995 to find my fathers family. I could not find any info so, I started to gather info on all BOWNE's born all years and all countries. Norm Perks also a BOWNE said he would help. His grandmother was a BOWNE. we bought a Family Tree Maker program and we started to gather info extracting census,birth,marriage,death info,writing to atleast one BOWNE in every state and posting to allied families on rootsweb aqnd posting to every state on rootsweb.  We have a database of 5,000 BOWNE's and 250,000 alied families related to a BOWNE. Family originates in England 1388 and 2 BOWNE families came to the US in 1630's amd were Quakers. A house in Flushing NY built in 1666. still stands info on house http://www.bownehouse.org/ My father died before I could interview him. I now have found over 50 relatives that I have never met. Still lots of missing info Thanks for you help in finding my California relatives Audrey Bowne acbowne1@yahoo.com