) ( ( ) Good Morning Family! ( \ .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \* ) \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . .=|=. \| |// ...and we even have decaf, |~'~| | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! | | \ / _|___|_ ------ (_______) Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Are you new to the family? 3. NEVER apologize for needing us! 4. RE: the Howell Research Room *** REMINDER: GIFTS FOR OUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS ARE DUE TO ME BY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30th *** If you're new or have lost your original message regarding this family event, let me know <[email protected]> and I'll send you a copy. TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire 4H family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Howell lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Howell ancestors or any of the 9 variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. You have joined not just a list, but a family of cousins who are four teams of researchers combined into one family, the 4H. Although we are one family, we have two homesites and if you haven't visited these sites yet, you are encouraged to do so ~ Home for the HOWELL-L, HOWELLS-SOUTHERN-L, and HOWLE-L is the Howell Research Room (otherwise known as the HRR) which opened May 28th. You'll find it located at <http://geocities.com/howell_research>. While not large in size yet, this site is to become a clearinghouse dedicated to global research of the Howell[s] surname and all her variant spellings. You're invited to submit material for display at the HRR. Simply let me know you want to house material there and what it is. We can display anything, provided it doesn't involve living persons. Contact me at <[email protected]>. Home for the HOWELL-SURNAME-L is the Edward Howell Family Association site at <http://www.ehfa.org>. This is a site dedicated to descendants of Edward Howell of Southampton, Long Island, New York. There you'll find an online transcription of "Descendants of Edward Howell (1584-1655) of Westbury Manor, Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire, [England], and Southampton, Long Island, New York," Second Edition by Dr. David Faris. Web mistress for the EHFA site is Kristen Howell <[email protected]>. ARE YOU NEW TO THE FAMILY? For those cousins who joined us in the last 24 hours, the family is currently getting ready for its first family Christmas. We have a Christmas tree inside the HRR that can be reached by clicking on the "To the Tree!" button on the front page of our home. Opening of gifts will take place on Christmas Day (after Santa's arrival). If you'd like to participate in our first Christmas, send me a message <[email protected]> and I'll send you the guidelines. NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR NEEDING US! Within the past couple days we had a cousin turn to us with some very painful news. In her message she apologized. Cousins, when you have news of a sort that you feel the *need* to turn to the family, NEVER, BUT NEVER do you have to apologize to us nor should you. If you feel close enough to us as a family that you need to tell us all something that painful, you are very welcome to. I know, I know... this is a genealogy forum first. You're right, it is. But it's the *family* that builds that forum; and we've all come a very, very long way from the scrapping and argumentative group of strangers that once was. We've bonded together ~ begun building memories. We've begun to know each other personally ~ something that has enabled us to become this family that we are. With bonding, occasionally an emotional "need" develops in some of the people. This occurrence happens only in very few circumstances behind this medium of computers, monitors and messages. Well family ... it's happening to us. We've become an extremely special online family. :) So, if one of the cousins feels so close s/he feels that need to turn to us, please support that cousin and let him/her know we're here. And if you're that person, NEVER apologize for turning to those for whom you care. Particularly due to all our messages being in public archives, discussions of this nature can always be taken behind the scenes, offlist, once the initial announcement has been made. We are family, and we should stand together as one. RE: THE HOWELL RESEARCH ROOM Have you not been able to see our Christmas pages yet? Well, last night I received a message from GeoCities, the domain where our home sits with a possible reason why. Here it is: "Dear GeoCities Member, "Congratulations, http://www.geocities.com/howell_research seems to be very popular and has been receiving a large amount of traffic. Our records indicate that you're using more than the allotted amount of data transfer we provide for a free web site, which is 3 gigabytes per month (measured on an hourly basis). That means that during the past few days we had to temporarily turn your site off to keep the bandwidth within this limit. "What can I do? "Keep in mind that large files such as images and multimedia files can effect your data transfer greatly. A single web page that contains 200,000 bytes of images will only be able to be viewed about 20-25 times an hour. By keeping your file sizes and page sizes as small as possible, you can maximize the amount of page views your site can produce. [NOTE: I've reduced all Christmas graphics files to as low a byte-size as I dare, if they're to come out nice-looking to our visiting public.] "You can also upgrade your site to one of our new premium services, GeoCities Pro or GeoCities Webmaster. These packages allow for 10 and 20 gigabytes of data transfer per month, and also give you the option of purchasing unlimited data transfer so your site will always be accessible. These packages also enable you to run an ad-free site at your own domain name (for example, www.howell_research.com) AND get matching email accounts at that domain (like [email protected]_research.com). "For more information about our new packages, please visit http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info3 Upgrading your current GeoCities site to one of our new premium packages is simple. You don't have to move ANY of your files, and your current GeoCities web address will continue to work in addition to your domain. "If you'd prefer not to receive this notice in the future, just go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/opt/bwemail to take your name off of the notify list. Of course, our servers will continue to monitor your site's data usage and turn it off if it exceeds the limits. Thank you, Yahoo! GeoCities http://geocities.yahoo.com/" After Christmas we'll need to give thought to what we're going to do with our home. Do I leave it at GeoCities and risk our pages not loading because of too much traffic? Do I move? Since this is OUR home, this will be a family decision. I will not arbitrarily move us and your data to just anywhere in cyberspace. OUR material builds our home and makes it what it is, therefore it should be OUR decision as to what to do. If you have ideas on this issue, I'm willing to listen <[email protected]> OR use the CHAT: forum. The pages on our site have been viewed an aggregate total of 11,451 times already! This is BIG! Our front door pages (the one with the study window usually on it) may read only 2700+, but those pages are definitely being read. OUR CHRISTMAS TREE Okay cousins, have any of you noticed that we have family members who can't wait till Christmas? They've been snooping around under the tree! Now we ALL know that there are package rattlers and gift squishers in our midst!!! LOL I'm glad to see we have cousins who certainly enjoy their tree! <g> And with our curious cousins and my empty coffee cup I now must say... Family ... it's what we're all about. Thank you for allowing me to spend this time with you today. I wish each of you a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love and inner peace. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'