) ( ( ) 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. Corrections to last week's Coffee 3. Generations of music 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://howellresearch.com>. 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]>. You're welcome to share this Coffee with your genealogy friends and relatives. If they are not members of our online family and would like to begin receiving the Coffee, they are now able to. Simply have them send a blank email to <[email protected]>. CORRECTIONS TO LAST WEEK'S COFFEE Brought to my attention were two errors in URLs. The first one I sent out in a separate message almost directly after last week's Coffee. However, I'll publish it again to make sure you caught it. I do apologize to those sites for my errors and to you, gentle reader, as well. They are: Obituary Lookup Volunteers - Rootsweb List - <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~obitl/>. A list of people who are willing to do obituary lookups in their area. Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness - <http://www.raogk.org>. "The volunteers of this movement are agreeing once per month to either videotape cemeteries, etc., or to visit county courthouses in the county (or area of a country) they live. The cost to you would be reimbursement of costs incurred in granting your request (video tape, copy fees, etc.)". FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC It's 7:30 a.m. and my alarm/radio has just come on. "God bless America, land that I love..." comes booming out. Only one person I've ever heard could belt that song out like that ... Kate Smith. I'm immediately carried back to the 40's. I take comfort that all is well in my country and my life, and drift back into slumberland. "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah ... she loves you, yeah yeah yeah ..." Okay, okay! I'm up! The revolutionary 60's has me bounding out of bed. [1955 - "Maybellene" by Chuck Berry] It's strange how listening to my nostalgic radio station has me mentally bouncing from decade to decade, generation to generation. I wonder if the same thing happened to our forebears when they sang their songs or heard them sung by someone older? ... younger? [1977 - "Hotel California" by The Eagles] One of the really neat things about music, and there are many, is that it reflects the times. Lyrics tell how people feel and about the events of the period. In many ways music gives us a more accurate picture of people and events than any other method available. From Gregorian chant to the music of Bach and Beethoven to the music we know today, the stories of the centuries span a millennium. Just what did our ancestors listen to and sing? Join me, if you will, on a trip down a short, musical memory lane. Interspersed between the paragraphs are songs I hope most of you will recognize at least a few of and be able to put a memory to. [1529 - "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" by Martin Luther] Minstrels, minnesingers, troubadours (or trouvères), and jongleurs told stories about life and death through the songs they carried from village to village. They wrote the poetry, set their works to music and travelled with their jongleurs who accompanied them on a variety of instruments, mostly strings. When the boring nights of winter arrived, and during periods of time when the nobles were isolated from the poor during the plague, people sang songs telling of great battles, honor and chivalry, myths like the story of King Arthur, and of course, love. Some of the songs were humorous and some were bawdy. Many of the songs were written in praise of the idealized woman. [ca. 1600 - "The Silver Swanne" by Orlando Gibbons] Religious music was the first music of early colonists. Traditional English hymns were brought to America. Pilgrims from Southhampton and Plymouth brought with them the Ainsworth Psalter(1) imprinted in 1612 in Amsterdam. It was used until 1667 when The Bay Psalter(2) was adopted. Songs written from poems of the earliest Greek poets to songs of the gypsies who arrived in Great Britain at the end of the fifteenth century comprised the music these people brought to the new land. [1616 - "Drink To Me Only with Thine Eyes" by Benjamin Jonson] The first English settlers in Virginia and later, Carolina and Georgia, took their music with them. The Appalachian wilderness allowed such songs as "Barbara Allen" and "Mr. Frog" to develop in isolation away from the prying eyes and ears of the Puritans. Most of these songs were stories about day-to-day life and death experiences and they were usually passed along by singing them at family gatherings, church functions and gatherings of friends. Since most of these people lived in the mountains and hills outside the cities, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills. This was the start of "mountain music" or "country music." [1685 - "Annie Laurie," words by William Douglas; music by Lady John Douglas Scott] It wasn't until after the Revolutionary War that the printing of individual items of music began in North America; music still closely linked to England. Music began reflecting a new life in a new world. The words of "The Star-Spangled Banner" were written by Francis Scott Key on September 14, 1814. Other songs of this period include "America," "Oh Shenandoah!," and "Johnny's Gone For a Soldier." We wrote songs to celebrate our presidents. Folk music and ballads were the rage. Black spirituals and slave music came from the African slaves. [1778 - "The Rebels" by Captain Smith, Simcoe's Queens Rangers] Today the songs of the 1800's offer us insights into hearts and minds of the American pioneer. Throughout the 19th century our grandparents sang songs about the sea and songs about the west. Their music dramatizes the lives of the men, women and children who homesteaded the vast prairie in America's heartland. I can see them walking next to their oxen-pulled wagons, girls and women in boots, long skirts, long-sleeved bodices and hats; the boys and men in sturdy boots, pants, long-sleeved shirts and hats ... walking through the fields of tall prairie grass, the sun beating down on them, the wind gently blowing... [1846 - "Oh, Susanna" by Stephen Collins Foster] I find it comforting to be propelled back to a time when life was less complicated or have a song relight a memory of happiness. I have to wonder then, if our forebears found mental comfort and "returned home" when they heard songs from their homelands or times earlier. Did our settling ancestors "escape" to a happier time, possibly in their youth, as they sang their songs while walking and traversing the continent? [1884 - "Oh My Darling, Clementine" by Percy Montrose] 1860: Popular music just before and during the Civil War concerned itself with political and military events. Songs included "Amazing Grace," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Dixie," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," "Old Black Joe," "Carry me Back to Old Virginny," and "Marching Through Georgia." Religious songs were popular including "He Leadeth Me," "Gimme that Old Time Religion," "Go Tell it on the Mountain," and "My Faith Looks Up to Thee." Folklore music started during this period and included the music of the Indians, Negroes, mountainneers, cowboys, lumberjacks, sailors and others. [1875 - "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" by Thomas P. Westendorf] 1900: The turn of the century arrives and there are now 45 states. Popular songs include "When the Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbing Along," "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," and "In the Good Old Summertime." Vaudeville is still swinging. The "Erie Canal Song," also known as "Low Bridge," was first published in 1913, was composed to protest the coming of the mechanized barge which would replace the mule that had been used previously. [1917 - "Over There" by George M. Cohan] The music of the times was reflected in the popular songs sung during the first World War (1913-1917). Songs of this period included, "If You Were the Only Girl in the World," "How Ya Gonna Keep'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)," "Keep the Home Fires Burning," and "Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo." Wartime humorous songs were sung, too ~ "Would you Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder or a Private with a Chicken on Your Knee?" "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin in 1917 was first performed by Kate Smith in 1938. 1946 - "There's No Business Like Show Business" by Irving Berlin The music of the forties reflected the feeling of a nation at war. The New York Times cost two cents per copy and a gallon of gasoline was seventeen cents. Pro-war songs included "We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again" and "Kiss the Boys Goodbye." "I'll be Seeing You," sung by Bing Crosby and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by the Andrews Sisters were popular. Popular performers of the time included Glenn Miller, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and the Mills Brothers. [1956 - "Don't Be Cruel" by Elvis Presley] Today's music has evolved to such a state that our early ancestors would probably brand us all as heathens! :) But no matter what the generation, I noticed the one before says the same as the one before them, who said the same thing ... "...and you call THAT music????" [1969 - "Run Through the Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) Family ... it's what we're all about. I so enjoyed spending this time with you today. Thank you for sharing it with me. I wish each of you a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love and inner peace. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.' (1) Officially titled "The Book of Psalmes: Englished Both in Prose and Metre," the Ainsworth Psalter was the primary source for psalms in the Plymouth Colony. It was compiled by Henry Ainsworth, a non-conforming clergy. (2) The first book, and first music, published in British Colonial America was the "Bay Psalter" in 1640.]