Death records are one of the important sources of genealogical information. . . Also a source for amazement, if one reads the "cause of death" section. The most popular cause was "consumption" but amost as many died of "chronic". Unlike other contagious diseases that struck an area and after a while, moved on, "comsumption" and "chronic" remained for years! "Bilious" took it's toll as did a variety of fevers, i.e. lung, glandular, nervous, brain and "new moany". Children fell victim to hives, croup and summer complaint. Some of the doctors added descriptive phrases to the death certificates; these phrases tell a story of their own, such as the death of a 3 month old infant: "The mother being a corpulent woman laid on it and killed it." Or the 7 month old, whose "mother gave it a dose of morphine prepared for herself, by mistake, thinking it was pepsin." A young man died from "an overflow of brains"; another died "with a fit". In one accidental death the doctor gave for cause, "his clothes caught fire and burned him"; on the line for complications, he wrote, "he was an idiot." ==== NCORANGE Mailing List ==== Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com - Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list Orange Co, NC USGenWeb site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange