The Howard family of Cambridgeshire
I have two instances of the Howard family in my tree. One is a maternally ancestral from the fenland village of Stretham, Cambridgeshire, England. The other family group is only connected via marriage, but is likely to be connected because they're based in Stretham's neighbouring hamlet Little Thetford - no more than 2 miles away.
Howard family of Stretham
My ancestral branch of the Howard family connects to my maternal Lythell family in 1805. The earliest record of the Howard surname in Stretham, takes place in 1656, but there's no clear link to this entry in the burial register. The earliest confirmed relative in the register is William Howard, the oldest of at least two children of Thomas Howard of Stretham, and his wife Elizabeth Drage who came from Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.
It was their second child, Frances Howard who was my 5x Great Grandmother. She became the third and final wife of John Lythell, adding five more children to his brood of six legitimate, and two reputed children.
Howard of Little Thetford
The second instance of the Howard family appears when my maternal 2x Great Grandfather's brother John William Yarrow marries Amy Ann Howard who was one of the ten children of Thomas Howard of Little Thetford, and his wife Mary Ann who was born in Canada.
This family group doesn't yet connect to my ancestral branch, but they are so geographically close, that it is inevitable that the connection will be made eventually.
Howard family connections
The Howard family provide me with links to another couple of my ancestral families: