Plagues, epidemics, etc

[Dennis]

Hi,

Should the occurence of any of those events be considered as sources of interest? Can only 1 member of a family die of smallpox, typhoid fever, measles, etc.? If there was an outbreak of flu or some other transferrable disease ( including sexually ) should it be documented somewhere?


dennis

[LesleyB]

Hi Dennis

Can only 1 member of a family die of smallpox

As far as I've seen in my tree, yes, this is possible.

If there was an outbreak of flu or some other transferrable disease ( including sexually ) should it be documented somewhere

In some cases yes - there was a whooping cough epidemic in at least the Edinburgh area in about the 1850-60s and I seem to remember I found documentation for that (just can't put my hands on it right now! ) There even seems to be a book (not cheap)!!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Epidemic-Street ... 776&sr=1-1
but I'm not sure which parts of the UK are covered. I'm sure any history of Scotland worth its salt might mention major epidemics in passing too, and local newspapers would probably have more detailed information for an area.

Best wishes
Lesley

[LesleyB]

Hi Dennis
I've just had a closer look at the family I have where a child died of smallpox. At the time she was the first born child, and died very young, just a couple of months before her mother gave birth to child number two. Both the parents survived and went on to have several other children - but maybe if there had been other children those might not have been so fortunate.... not sure.

Best wishes
Lesley

[LesleyB]

Hi Dennis
Still digging around: this is an interesting article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhi ... rban.shtml
and several dates for epidemics mentioned here:
http://www.glasgowguide.co.uk/info-timeline.html
and another link wth fascinating information:
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/haynin/hay ... topic.html
...scroll down to diseases!

Best wishes
Lesley

[Dennis]

Hi Lesley,

Thank you for the feedback and the reading material. I've yet to find any family in my tree of 1800 folk that were wiped out by any scourge of infectious disease or horrific tenement fire, even pre-1855. One would think that there would be documentation on who died and their addresses. Could it be that Glasgow never had an entire block or building in which many a family were consumed by disease or fire?

Regards. dennis

[LesleyB]

hi Dennis

I've yet to find any family in my tree of 1800 folk that were wiped out by any scourge of infectious disease or horrific tenement fire, even pre-1855. One would think that there would be documentation on who died and their addresses. Could it be that Glasgow never had an entire block or building in which many a family were consumed by disease or fire?

Good thought - I'd suspect that those families who may have been wiped out by disease or fire would not have direct descendants, so they are likely to be at the fringes of people's trees perhaps. I wonder too if during an epidemic that due to the emergency nature of such an occurance, there was not always the time or organisation available to record names & etc. Certainly just getting everyone who had died buried reasonably promptly could possibly be a problem. I'm sure any large fires would turn up in local papers.

I do have one family in my tree who had a pretty tough time of it due to a mixture of an epidemic and a couple of other nasty diseases - 3 children died in one year, with another two children dying in the following two years, so from a family of nine children, there were only four who survived to adulthood. I suspect this is a pattern repeated in many families - not wiped out, just decimated.

There is one record of patients in a hospital I can think of which makes fascinating reading (if not a little shocking, the two outcomes being either dead or cured...) :
http://www.scan.org.uk/researchrtools/smallpox.htm

Best wishes
Lesley

[Dennis]

Hi Lesley,

That 1872 hospital list for Mounthooly is fascinating reading; gets one to wondering if such lists exist for other temporary structures.

Thank you. dennis