I think that could be the case of Mary "Polly" Birchfield, but I don't know in the case with Mary, b. 1806, Samuel, b. 1811 & Mary's dau Cynthia, b. ca 1847. Of course, there are other diseases that can result in blindness. There used to be a female list member that had retinitis pigmentosa, and she was the one that alerted me to the fact that it was hereditary. I have since lost those notes and Bob George didn't archive the list posts back then. Samuel was blind early on and Rose says regarding Mary & Cynthia: "by 1860 Mary was blind and Cynthia was partially so, Cynthia prob. did not marry" 1850 Hendricks Co., IN Census Eel River Township Living in household of William Toney: Samuel Tolby 40 no occupation KY Blind <===== Not only was Cynthia blind, so was Mary's son Marion in 1880: 1880 Boone Co., IN Census Lebanon Transcribed by Louise Gaskill 31-31 DEWITT Marion Head M W 43 Laborer BLIND IN KY NC Margaret wife F W 44 Keeping house IN KY KY Eliza M. dau F W 18 Idiot IN IN IN There is a good website to read about the disease: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/eyedisease/rp.htm Louise On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 11:35:00 -0500 "Carole Bays" <acbays@mrtc.com> writes: > Were they blind from a disease or cataracts that affect us all at > sometime late in life? They had no surgery, had to live with it. > > Carole > > -----Original Message----- > From: Louise Gaskill [mailto:pgaskill@juno.com] > Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 11:19 AM > To: TAULBEE-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: Re: [TAULBEE-L] Blindness in Taulbee Men > > On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 08:43:44 +0200 melvin > <jutpolk@netvision.net.il> > writes: > > At least one of JamesTaulbee's Great Grandchildren has this > disease > > and is > > now blind.He is now in his mid 70's and has been totally > blind--for > > a few > > years. But am I reading this correctly? this only affects the > > > men?- I will check. Cuzzin Justine > > Justine, > > It looks like the females are affected also. > Mary "Polly" Birchfield, d/o Nancy Caroline Taulbee & > Adam Birchfield was blind per the 1880 Breathitt Co. > census, Polly md William Ashford Taulbee. > > 2 children of Samuel Taulbee & Rebecca Birchfield, > Mary & Samuel, went blind also, as well as Mary's > dau Cyntha per Rose's book. > > Louise > > ________________________________________________________________ > The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! > Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! > Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! > > > ==== TAULBEE Mailing List ==== > TAULBEE at GENFORUM > http://genforum.genealogy.com/taulbee/ > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 > > > > ==== TAULBEE Mailing List ==== > TAULBEE mail list information page: > http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/t/taulbee.html > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 > > > ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!