In a message dated 07/05/2007 14:28:45 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Was there an outbreak of typhus or anything at that time in the area that may have resulted in the children dying young? ______________________________________________________________________________ _ Infant mortality was high throughout the nineteenth century. In the period 1874 to 1900 my grandfather and his three brothers, in Sunderland, had 34 children, between them, of whom 21 died in infancy. Regards Stan Mapstone