This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/DhB.2ACE/727.1 Message Board Post: Lisa, it was not uncommon for illnesses to decimate a family without it being a epidemic. Much of Brown Co. relied on cisterns, tanks (ponds, for "foreigners"), etc., and contamination by typhoid, diptheria, etc. would be deadly. (These are the good old days!)