Good morning Josie Many thanks. Very interesting indeed. I had identified 'Religion and Society in Kent, 1640-1914' as a possible source of Epidemic information for this time. I will go to Canterbury Library on Monday morning and see if they have a copy. Some sort of timeline might be informative. I started 1675-1754 Marriages yesterday in Canterbury Archives and 1679-1680 appear to be busy marriage years with lots of widowers and widows. I need to complete the de Launy 1538-1600 transcriptions before looking at marriages with you. I have reached the letter R. We will not be going to CKS until the second half of this month. I am leading a week long D-Day and Normandy Battlefield tour for some American friends next week. I will let you know when I start to make bookings as we can get adjacent tables if we organize ourselves some time in advance. Pat and I favour Tuesdays and Fridays (11-5 with free bus passes) as these are David Hills days - three heads are better than two or one with Secretary Script - four are even better. CKS are closed Mondays and CA Fridays. Are you are reading the film for early Woodchurch Baptisms at Dover Library? I have volunteered to assist FreeBMD in photographing the early Births, Marriages and Deaths Indexes. The Family Record Centre is closing soon and direct access to the original Indexes will cease. Very understandable as they are showing definite signs of wear with their continual use. Digital cameras were not around when they were originally photographed. Pat and I will do this on Monday 8th October when the local Mormons run a bus up to the Family Record Centre in London. The specification requirement is quite something. No flash. 3 mega pixels per picture so 2 megabytes per image and no more than 10 megabytes per email attachment. I have a 2 gigabyte flash card for just such occasions. Best done on the floor by a large window we are advised. We hope to do at least 100 but they are not continuous so a lot of running about with those huge books. Pat has agreed to hold the pages flat - vital. We think it is an important project and where would we all be without FreeBMD. Best wishes - Bob Chown Josie Mackie <josie.mackie@tesco.net> wrote: Good Morning Bob, I have found a few references which may interest you. It's very likely that the high number of deaths was, as you said, contagious disease related: Hay and Rogers ('Eighteenth Century English Society' OUP 1997, p77) say, (bearing in mind they are talking about the whole of England, not the SE in particular) "...with the possible exception of the late 1720s, famine -related mortality disappeared by the second quarter of the seventeenth century......it appears that in early-modern times such crises probably accounted for no more than 10 per cent of normal mortality...." Arthur Ruderman ('A History of Ashford' Phillimore 1994, p.30) (For our overseas members, Ashford is about seven miles from Woodchurch) : "The burial registers give us some idea of incidence of disease over the centuries. If the number of burials in any year is more than twice the average for the decade, it can be assumed that some form of epidemic occured. For Ashford, this happened in 1578, 1584, 1594, 1625, 1687, and 1741. In 1625 this was due to an outbreak of plague, some 100 persons being marked in tthe registeras dying from this disease. The situation was so bad that the Justices levied a special tax on the neighbourhood to relieve those without means of support, or, as they phrased it, 'lest the sick should be forced for the succour of their lives to break forth of the town to the great danger of the country'. " [Sounds as they they need to be congratulated as Eyam] To continue: "In 1741 the deaths were almost certaily due to smallpox, since, although the registers give no indication, several cases are recorded in other documents at this time." He goes on to give examples of smallpox deaths 1717 onwards. Then, from 'Religion and Society in Kent, 1640-1914', I made the following notes. [I do not have the book myself, so can only say what I noted down, but it's in main libraries. There may be more of interest, for late 17th century, on this topic in the book]. Outbreak of smallpox at Folkestone: 1720 , 145 died. 140 died at Canterbury in 1729. 33 died at Deal and 61 at Dover in 1725-6. Inoculation virtually unknown in Kent in 1724. Other illnesses at time [I'm not sure whether the author is referring to his whole period or not] were tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid, influenza, scarlatina, diphtheria. Best wishes, Josie ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-KEN-WOODCHURCH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Dear Bob, Thanks for the email...I didn't rush to reply as you said you were off to France, then there was an email from you this morning...so here I am replying! I was able to go to CKS yesterday after all. John changed his day with his mother so I booked in and took Hannah (younger daughter) with me...she explored the many retail delights of Maidstone (Topshop, H and M, etc, etc) while I got on with far more interesting things. Mainly getting examples for my October talk. I shall probably go up next week with Celia (older daughter) as she is doing a dissertation as part of course this year and wants to be shown round. But let me know about when you and Pat are there following that. Either day you mention should be good for me. I am going in to school to help in a friend's class one morning a week but we haven't yet set up a day for that. Why did you ask if I was looking at early baptisms on film at Dover? I didn't know they had them! I haven't looked at early baptisms. best wishes, Josie ----- Original Message ----- From: "BOB CHOWN" <bob.chown@btinternet.com> To: <eng-ken-woodchurch@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 7:37 AM Subject: Re: [ENG-KEN-WOODCHURCH] Epidemic of October 1678- March 1680 -followup questions > Good morning Josie > > Many thanks. Very interesting indeed. I had identified 'Religion and Society in Kent, 1640-1914' as a possible source of Epidemic information for this time. I will go to Canterbury Library on Monday morning and see if they have a copy. Some sort of timeline might be informative. > > I started 1675-1754 Marriages yesterday in Canterbury Archives and 1679-1680 appear to be busy marriage years with lots of widowers and widows. > > I need to complete the de Launy 1538-1600 transcriptions before looking at marriages with you. I have reached the letter R. We will not be going to CKS until the second half of this month. I am leading a week long D-Day and Normandy Battlefield tour for some American friends next week. I will let you know when I start to make bookings as we can get adjacent tables if we organize ourselves some time in advance. Pat and I favour Tuesdays and Fridays (11-5 with free bus passes) as these are David Hills days - three heads are better than two or one with Secretary Script - four are even better. CKS are closed Mondays and CA Fridays. > > Are you are reading the film for early Woodchurch Baptisms at Dover Library? > > I have volunteered to assist FreeBMD in photographing the early Births, Marriages and Deaths Indexes. The Family Record Centre is closing soon and direct access to the original Indexes will cease. Very understandable as they are showing definite signs of wear with their continual use. Digital cameras were not around when they were originally photographed. Pat and I will do this on Monday 8th October when the local Mormons run a bus up to the Family Record Centre in London. The specification requirement is quite something. No flash. 3 mega pixels per picture so 2 megabytes per image and no more than 10 megabytes per email attachment. I have a 2 gigabyte flash card for just such occasions. Best done on the floor by a large window we are advised. We hope to do at least 100 but they are not continuous so a lot of running about with those huge books. Pat has agreed to hold the pages flat - vital. We think it is an important project and where would we all be without FreeBMD. > > Best wishes - Bob Chown > >