Michelle, Harold has offered some excellent thoughts. I have found newspapers to be excellent sources for death causes. In the cases of accidents they often include more gory details than you may want to know. There is another thing that I have noticed about earlier death certificates. That is how often people died and no autopsy was performed. Many of the causes of death would often automatically require an autopsy today. I was talking to a friend recently; her daughter is the Chief Medical Examiner in a county in New York. Her daughter said that we have to remember that medicine and medical knowledge was not as advanced as it is today. As a result often caused of death were not as accurate as they are today. One of the causes of this was that it was often a medical examiner that filled out the death certificate. Most often this was an elected position and required no medical training to be elected. In some cases the person may be a funeral director and have some formal training. They still did not have the knowledge of a trained physician. Chuck Mason -----Original Message----- From: transitional-genealogists-forum-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:transitional-genealogists-forum-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Harold Henderson Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 11:36 AM To: Michele Lewis Cc: TGF Mailing List Subject: Re: [TGF] Why kids died Michele -- Two thoughts: (1) Don't omit newspapers as sources for deaths. They put the most amazing things in newspapers back then that you would get sued for today. (2) No general reason other than the primitive state of medicine (esp. no antibiotics) and often public-health issues such as sanitation and water supply. I would be very hesitant to draw any more drastic conclusions in any particular case without good evidence, which as you say is hard to come by. One of my grandmothers died as a young mother in 1920 of a simple ear infection that could not be treated and did not seem serious -- she wrote a typical letter two days before. The other grandmother lost her first-born in 1916: it was a month early and she thought it should have conditions as womb-like as possible, but the doctor told her different. No, I can't imagine. (Actually maybe I can: she lived to 94 and had no truck with stories about "the good old days.") Harold On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Michele Lewis <ancestoring@gmail.com>wrote: > I have a couple in the last 1800s that had several of their children die. > They lost one at 4 months, one at 5 months, one at 2 years, one at 1 year, > one at 1 year 5 months, and one at age 15. They also lost one at age 26 > [died with kidney failure after an appendectomy]. They had 2 that lived to > adulthood. There are 2 more that I can't trace. > > > > When you see a bunch of babies/children die in the same family (but not at > the same time like an illness wiping out several at once) what do you > think? > Coincidental deaths? All died of the same thing? Something wrong with the > children genetically or hereditarily? I doubt that I will ever know > since > there were no death certificate (except for the one that made it to age > 26). > It just makes we wonder. This woman would lose a baby every couple of > years. I can't even imagine. > > > > Michele > > > > The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive > environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to > professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word > 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- Harold Henderson midwestroots.net Research, Writing, and Brickwall Dismantling from Northwest Indiana Regularly Researching at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center Certified Genealogist (SM) No. 1029 Certified Genealogist and CG are proprietary service marks of the Board for Certification of GenealogistsR used by the Board to identify its program of genealogical competencyevaluation and used under license by the Board's associates. The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message