Tony, Start with the thought that a Priest or a Minister didn't care why a person had died. His care was that the person was in the process of death through sickness, then his ministerial duties and followed by the eventual burial. His job was the spiritual care of the live body and the religious handling of the dead body. Agreed from roughly 1810 on he may have been the civil recorder of information however the change was an almost non-noticeable change of duties. He recorded the baptisms, the marriages and the burials. He also probably kept records for his Church of the Confirmations. The cause of the death was of lessen value than the idea that the death had occured with the following burial. However, his method of recording also depended on the particular form used for the records of that Church. Some death forms actually had a column for insertion of the cause of death. This was common in certain areas and in certain year time periods. If the column was not there, the illness cause of death probably was not indicated. As to children, youth and death.....consider the medical abilities of the time, consider the number of children in any family, consider the ability of feeding all the children, consider the various illnesses which the medical profession of the time could not handle. Leeches were still being used to remove bad blood to cure the illness? Food was not necessarily healthy. Germs were rampant. Theodor Schwann (in Germany) and Louis Pasteur (in France) did not reach their position in food protection until the middle to late 1800s. Living was a gamble. However, I know of no identified specific epidemic for your time period of the 1820s. In 1831 a Cholera epidemic did spread from Russia into Germany just as the Irish brought Cholera in 1832 to North America. A child living to adulthood might have been considered as a wonderful gift to the family. Mortality rates were high. Politically, also, the 1820s was a comparable quiet time of history in Baden although the Carlsbad decrees did result in some high-level upheavals. djweber [email protected] ------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 12, 2005 5:36 PM Subject: [Ortenau] Cause of death > List Members, > > I have been keeping myself busy going through about 10 films from LDS from > Church Records of Oberkirch, Baden. I have copied many and had them > transcribed and translated by German Historical Research Society Inc. > These people do a fantastic job and I have learned much, much more about > my German heritage than I have in the past 15 years. > Now, I have another question for the list membership. I have noticed among > the many death documents recorded by the church that never was a reason > for death given or recorded. Did they just not record the cause of death > or is there other records that would contain this information. The reason > I ask this question poses another question. During the early 1800's the > family had children born in 1812, 1814, 1815, 1818, 1819, 1821. The first > three children immigrated to America with the father and mother. The last > three children (boys) died between 1822 and 1828. All less than 10 years > old. Was there some sort of disease within the country at that time that > would have caused a higher than usual mortality rate among the young > children? Could war have been a reason for death? > I would like to hear from you as to your thought on this matter. > > Regards, Tony Fetz