Genealogy Forum NEWS
August, 1997
Random Thoughts
EPIDEMICS AFFECTING YOUNG AND OLD
Forwarded by GFSBarb
from the COOK Surname Message Group on RootsWEB
http://www.rootsweb.com/~maillist/
From: LCleversey@aol.com
Dear COOK Family,
Found this and thought this would be of interested to everyone, it might answer the question of what happen.
Epidemics in U.S. - 1657 - 1918
Epidemics have always had a great influence on people -- and thus influencing, as well, the genealogists trying to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records cam be traced to dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the major epidemics in the United States are listed below:
1657 Boston: Measles
1687 Boston: Measles
1690 New York: Yellow Fever
1713 Boston: Measles
1729 Boston: Measles
1732-33 Worldwide: Influenza
1738 South Carolina: Smallpox
1739-40 Boston: Measles
1747 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania & South Carolina: Measles
1759 North America (areas inhabited by white people): Measles
1761-61 North America & West Indies: Influenza
1772 North America: Measles
1775 North America (especially hard in New England): Epidemic (unknown)
1775-76 Worldwide: Influenza
1781-82 Worldwide: Influenza (one of worst flu epidemics)
1788 Philadelphia & New York: Measles
1793 Vermont: Influenza and a "putrid fever"
1793 Virginia: Influenza (kills 500 people in 5 counties in 4 weeks)
1793 Philadelphia: Yellow fever (one of worst)
1783 Delaware (Dover): "extremely fatal" bilious disorder
1793 Pennsylvania (Harrisburg & Middletown): many unexplained deaths
1794 Philadelphia: Yellow fever
1796-97 Philadelphia: Yellow Fever
1798 Philadelphia: Yellow Fever (one of worst)
1803 New York: Yellow Fever
1820-23 Nationwide: "fever" (starts on Schuylkill River, PA & spreads
1831-32 Nationwide: Asiatic Cholera (brought by English emigrants)
1832 New York & other major cities: Cholera
1837 Philadelphia: Typhus
1841 Nationwide: Yellow Fever (especially severe in South)
1847 New Orleans: Yellow Fever
1847-48 Worldwide: Influenza
1848-49 North America: Cholera
1850 Nationwide: Yellow Fever
1850-51 North America: Influenza
1852 Nationwide: Yellow Fever (New Orleans: 8,000 die in summer)
1855 Nationwide (many parts): Yellow Fever
1857-59 Worldwide: Influenza (one of disease's greatest epidemics)
1860-61 Pennsylvania: Smallpox
1865-73 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis, &
Washington D.C.: a series of recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus,
Typhoid, Scarlet Fever & Yellow Fever
1873-75 North America & Europe: Influenza
1878 New Orleans: Yellow Fever (last great epidemic of disease)
1885 Plymouth, PA: Typhoid
1886: Jacksonville, Fl: Yellow Fever
1918 Worldwide: Influenza (high point year) More people hospitalized in World War I
from Influenza than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps --with
80 percent death rate in some camps ----------------
Finally, these specific instances of cholera were mentioned:
1833 Columbus, Ohio
1834 New York City
1849 New York
1851 Coles Co., Illinois
1851 The Great Plains
1851 Missouri
Beginning Lesson #26
Family Group Sheets
submitted by DearMYRTLE
There are two basic forms your computer genealogy program can generate for you, namely the family group sheet and the pedigree chart. One can also buy more decorative blank forms. However, since all information needs to be entered into the genealogy program anyway, why not let the computer do the print-outs for you? We discussed Getting Organized in lesson #13, and many have written to ask more about these forms. We'll take the family group sheet this week and tackle the pedigree chart next week.
Although the text format of these lessons prevents my inserting a paste-up of a typical family group sheet, I will try to emulate one for you here. I cannot show the gridwork defining the spaces for information, but you will get the main idea.
Husband's Name
Birthdate/Locality
Marriage Date/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Mother's Name
Father's Name
Wife's Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Mother's Name
Father's Name
Child #1 Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Spouse's Name/Marriage Date/Locality
Child #2 Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Spouse's Name/Marriage Date/Locality
Child #3 Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Spouse's Name/Marriage Date/Locality
Child #4 Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Spouse's Name/Marriage Date/Locality
Child #5 Name
Birthdate/Locality
Death Date/Locality
Burial Date/Locality
Spouse's Name/Marriage Date/Locality
Sources:
Consider that the parents, whether married or not, are listed with all children, living or deceased who were a product of the union, including adoptions. Step-children are not listed here, but on another family group sheet where both blood-related parents are listed. Also note that dates for events are augmented by locality information.
Citing sources of information for each individual can become quite lengthy. However, this is the mark of a great genealogist. Take care to include the name of the archive or library where the information was found, as well as call number or microfilm number. In the case of certified copies of vital records be sure to included the official file number.
Many beginners object to adding the information on the siblings of direct line ancestors. However, it is widely accepted that when reviewing a family group sheet, many clues are unearthed by noting the birthplaces, etc of the children. One can begin to map a migration pattern for the parents, providing additional church and government jurisdictions to look for documents. Often aging parents are found in the household of a married child, hundreds of miles from their former hometown.
Its also necessary to show the number of children to paint a clearer picture of each family unit's life and times. Many of us are humbled to see what large families our ancestors fostered. Often children died in infancy. The emotional impact of this on your ancestors cannot be underestimated.
Family group sheets provide concise reports of family unit structure and are a basic method of sharing our data with others.
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS!
Just How Much Detail Should We Include in Our Family History?
from a recent thread of messages on soc.genealogy.methods newsgroup
From:giles@wsu.edu (News *{news.wsu.edu/nntp})
On 2 Dec 1996 kbennett@cris.com wrote:
efpdemt@ix.netcom.com (Darian A. Caplinger, EMT) wrote:
I was wondering exactly how detailed we should be when recording genealogy information. In particular, should I list my cousin's husband's brothers and sisters, even though they are not related to me
I hate to be the voice of decent but I think that a family tree is based on a blood line.
I include family and relatives, not every Tom Dick & Harry that might call me cousin because someone got married.
I include a great deal of information about collateral (sp?) lines. When I print out charts or books (modified registers) I do not include all of the individuals, just the direct individuals. Sometimes, families stayed together even when they migrated westward. Sometimes the cousins are helpful in determining if a family listed is "my" family. I may find several William GOTCHERS listed, but only one listed next door to John HAVENS, his wife's brother.
Just a thought. You can always delete them if the database gets too large.
Robbie Giles
giles@wsu.edu
From:catkinsn@ecity.net (carolyn atkinson)
Am going to stick my opinion here. Whatever information I find, I document. I believe that the more I can gather, the more chances I have of finding my direct line. Some of my great finds have been just barely mentions in other genealogies. It was 'common' knowledge in their line, but not mine. None of my lines have stayed in one spot for more than two generations. I have always come thru the younger sons or daughters. The first son is the one that usually stays. When in doubt put it in.
By having a broad data base, you might connect to someone who is searching for a connection and they might have lots of data and info and PICTURES!!!! I have connected with a cousin whose ancestor is a sibling of mine so we then have common xgrandparents--six generations back and she connected with someone who has a family picture of these ggg ggg grandparents and their children. She was pretty far off the line and we had to really do some digging, but we connected. It is really worth working collateral and cousins lines. I also have generations coming down that now have no connection to me, but I have found in my McIlvaine line that that I come thru two brothers lines that on one side three generations, and the other side 4 generations they reconnect and marry. I cannot figure out what kind of cousins they were, but if you just stayed on the straight and not carried collateral, you would have had to go clear back down and up again.
I hope I am not too confusing. I just believe in collecting, and connecting.
From:l.a.robertson@stm.tudelft.nl (Lesley Robertson)
Carolyn (Knight) Getting wrote:
Dear All,
Yeah, well I started out that way, too. But as I go along and find that families married and intermarried, the ones I left out are the ones I need, later on. I use Family Origins and I love it. It has a relationship calculator as well as a relationship list. My relationship list is 30 pages long. Course they aren't all living, and I'm no where near finished, but it's amazing to me, just how this all works.
It does pay to note EVERYTHING you find - and with the software around these days, it's more practical than previously. Sometimes a less-usual name occurs in a family, and helps pinpoint a particular line (believe me, when everyone in a particular line is called James and Isabella, it's a joy to find that one line is using Cecilia!) - but it may not be your direct ancestor that does. I tend to collect siblings and spouses of siblings, and for the less usual names, children of siblings - it pays when you find someone who descends from one of those children. When I finally got my maternal g.mother's line sorted (thank you Don), I found that I was the descendant of sibling's children from my maternal g.father's side! It's easier to collect the data when you see it than to have to go back to that archive again. -- Lesley Robertson
FAX FROM GFSNANCE
Reporting on her China Trip!
submitted by LiteIceMan@aol.com
TRIP TO CHINA, PART ONE - 7/18/97
Will it has certainly started out great. I put my bag through the x-ray security counter, and it went BEEP! BEEP!. They asked to check the bag, and I said YES. It was my 2 cans of Pepsi that set the beeping off. I had set my belly pack down on the counter, and walked off without it. While sitting in Burger King catching a bite to eat. I seen the woman from the counter area waving my belly pack at me. I walked back over to get it.
Later on, we went into Cheers Bar. Pat & I went for a walk. Pat played, MS Pack Man!! Then we walked back to Cheers, I was to meet Diane Lay there. We went up to the area where you wait for boarding. We kissed our husbands goodbye, and boarded the plane. We were late taking off. The plane had a flat tire. Now it is 6:30 and we are on our way!!
We are watching movies on the plane. The first was a Chinese movie, the second was something with Chevy Chase. We have meet a very nice gentleman on the plane. He has told us alot about China. He had worked for the First Alert Fire Extinguishers in Chicago.
Pilot just announced over the P.A. System, that the flight is expected to be about thirteen and a half hours. It was direct from Detroit to Peking ( Beizing ). The plane flew over Canada, Alaska, crossed the Bering Strait and crossed over a little portion of Russia. I was so EXCITED!!, I could not even sleep. The weather was good, but there was a little bit of turbulence. Otherwise, the flight went well.
We arrived in Beizing at 5:30 p.m. Mr.Ye met us, after we had been checked through security and picked up our bags. THANK GOODNESS they were all there! By now it is Saturday evening in Beizing and Saturday morning at home. Mr. Ye and his friend helped us find a hotel. This is after we had found out, that our plane to CHEEEEEE had already left without us. Well SURPRISE SURPRISE!! What do we do now??? Mr. Ye called Jons home for us. They had already left for the airport to pick us up. I was beginning to get scared! The hotel would not let us call Jon. Thank God, Mr. Ye had called us later, and then called Jon's family.
Shang Li called me, and told me not to "worry"!!
After being up for 22 hours, I was not thinking straight! I thought that I was going to be stranded in Beizing.
5 a.m. Saturday -
Well, it is 5 a.m. and I am still wide awake.
Shang Li called at 8:20 and said that a friend would be there to help us. She took our tickets and had the hotel manager call the airline "China Southwest". They had to re-arrange our flight onto Chengdu. The manager then called a taxi for us. We drove to the airport to catch our flight. Arriving at the airport, we went inside to wait to get tickets exchanged. We bought a hotdog on a stick. Xong Ying came back with our tickets.
We looked at them and guess what!!! They were stamped with the wrong date. This is Saturday, and the tickets had the date for Friday. So, she took them back to have the problem corrected.
At 1:00 p.m. we went had entered the station to board. They would not let Xong Ying enter with us. We had to ask at least 4 people where to catch flight 4106. There were 2 flights to Chengdu, but we were to only get on flight 4106. Then it finally appeared on the schedule board. We could now get on the plane, YEAH!!!
We are now on our way to Chengdu. We left Beizing at 3:00, and arrived in Chengdu
at 5:30. We were then bussed to the terminal, checked in, and pick up our bags. Yes, They were all there again. Jon ran in to greet us!! He has grown so much since he has left us. We, Pat & I, gave Jon and his family gifts. I had crocheted lap robes for Jons mother and grandmother. I gave Jon sweatshirts, from highschool that our sons attended. I also gave his mother and grandmother gifts, that my mother had made. I showed them pictures of my family.
It is time to go to bed. Pat has taken shower already. My turn now. Their servant Zou, had fixed us a very delicious meal. We enjoyed it!! Now it is off to bed.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Our ancestors would certainly have been surprised at the speed of Nance's travel. The concept of foreign exchange students was unheard of in previous centuries. Children of former generations often traveled as stowaways or captives, to be sold as indentured servants til they reached 21 years of age in the north American colonies. Often this tim eperiod was extended if a parent or other family member died during the lengthy trans-Atlantic voyage. The children had to serve additional years to pay for their deceased family member's passage too! Amazing! These are the foundations of our nation!
Beginner's Center | File Libraries | Internet Center
Message Boards | Resource Center | Reunion Center
Surname Center| Previous NEWS Issues
BACK to Cover Page - GFSNEWS 08/97
© 1997 - 2004 Graphics By Carol, All Rights Reserved
Content © 1997 - 2004 GFNEWS, a monthly publication of Golden Gate Services, Inc. of Armada, MI The Editors welcome your ideas and articles, success stories, favorite genealogy research tips, comments and suggestions. The Genealogy Forum is a proud member of the FGS - Federation of Genealogical Societies