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In case you ever wondered why a large number of your ancestors disappeared
during a certain period in history, this might help.
Epidemics have always had a great influence on people - and thus influencing, as well, the
genealogists trying to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records can be
traced to dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the
major epidemics in the United Sates are listed below.
I received this recently - it has been very useful.
1657 Boston: Measles
1687 Boston: Measles
1690 New York: Yellow Fever
1713 Boston: Measles
1729 Boston: Measles
1732-33 Worldwide: Influenza
1738 South Carolina: Smallpox
1739-40 Boston: Measles
1747 Conn., NY, PA & SC: Measles
1759 North America (areas inhabited by whites)
1761 North America & West Indies: Influenza
1772 North America: Measles
1775 North America (especially New England): Epidemic (unknown)
1775-76 Worldwide: Influenza (one of the worst flu epidemics)
1788 Philadelphia and NY: Measles
1793 Vermont: Influenza and a "putrid fever"
1793 Virginia: Influenza (killed 500 people in 5 counties in 4 weeks).
1793 Philadelphia: Yellow Fever (one of worst)
1783 Delaware (Dover) "extremely fatal" bilious disorder
1793 Pennsylvania (Harrisburg & Middletown) many unexplained deaths
1794 Philadelphia: Yellow fever
1796-97 Philadelphia: Yellow fever
1798 Philadelphia: Yellow fever (one of worst)
1803 New York: Yellow fever
1820-23 Nationwide: "fever" (starts on Schuylkill River, PA & spreads
1831-32 Nationwide: Asiatic Cholera (brought by English emigrants)
1832 New York & other major cities: Cholera
1837 Philadelphia: Typhus
1841 Nationwide: Yellow fever (especially severe in South)
1847 New Orleans: Yellow fever
1847-48 Worldwide: Influenza
1848-49 North America: Cholera
1850 Nationwide: Yellow Fever
1850-51 North America: Influenza
1852 Nationwide: Yellow fever (New Orleans, 8,000 die in summer)
1855 Nationwide: (many parts) Yellow fever
1857-59 Worldwide: Influenza (one of disease's greatest epidemics)
1860-61 Pennsylvania: Smallpox
1865-73 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis & Washington,
DC: A series of recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet fever
& Yellow fever
1873-75 North America & Europe: Influenza
1878 New Orleans: Yellow fever (last great epidemic of disease)
1885 Plymouth, PA: Typhoid
1886 Jacksonville, FL: Yellow fever
1918 Worldwide: Influenza (high point year). More people hospitalized in World War I for
Influenza than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps, with 80% death rate in
some camps.
Finally, these specific instances of cholera were mentioned:
1833 Columbus, OH
1834 New York City
1849 New York
1851 Coles County, IL
1851 The Great Plains
1851 Missouri
West Virginia became a state in 1863. The counties
in that part (eventually 55) were part of Virginia before then. (Parts of Ohio,
Yohogania (a PA county) and Monongalia counties ended up in Pennsylvania after the
Mason-Dixon line straightened THAT out.
"Illinois" County was that spurious area to the WEST of the Ohio River all the
way to the Mississipi River originally
optimistically claimed by Virginia in 1792, but patriotically ceded to the US later. For
practical purposes (especially since the start of the censuses in 1790) it never was part
of the state. Kentucky was formed from that part of Virginia in 1792.
Beginning with the year 1734, twelve Virginia counties have made up the territory that is
now West Virginia, ten of which have been reduced in area and continue to be a part of the
Mother State: Orange, Frederick, Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle*, Montgomery, West Augusta
District*, Rockingham, Wythe, bath, Tazewell, Giles. * Fincastle was absorbed in the
formation of Montgomery, Washington and Kentucky countyes. West Augusta District was
likewise absorbed in the creation of Monongalia, Ohio and Yohogania counties. [the last
would be that portion in Pennsylvania.]
An authoritative book on the West Virginia portion of county creation is "Making a
State" by Edgar B. Sims (1956) publ. by the State of WV, Charleston WV:Mathews
Printing and Litho. Co.
All counties were formed by 1863 (when WV split) except Grant (1866), Lincoln (1867),
Mineral (1866) and Mingo
(1895). The count for Virginia thus should have gone down by 52 in 1863...and the count
for WV is 0 before then. The state split was made on county lines by then, depending on
whether each county favored the North or South.
Listing of Virginia Counties.
Murphy's Law of Genealogy
The public ceremony in which your distinguished ancestor participated and at which the
platform collapsed under him turned out to be a hanging.
When at last after much hard work you have solved the mystery you have been working on for
two years, your aunt says, "I could have told you that".
You grandmother's maiden name that you have searched for for four years was on a letter in
a box in the attic all the time.
You never asked your father about his family when he was alive because you weren't
interested in genealogy then.
The will you need is in the safe on board the Titanic.
Copies of old newspapers have holes occurring only on the surnames.
John, son of Thomas, the immigrant whom your relatives claim as the family progenitor,
died on board ship at age 10.
Your gr grandfather's newspaper obituary states that he died leaving no issue of record.
The keeper of the vital records you need has just been insulted by another genealogist.
The relative who had all the family photographs gave them all to her daughter who has no
interest in genealogy and no inclination to share.
The only record you find for your gr grandfather is that his property was sold at a
sheriff's sale for insolvency.
The one document that would supply the missing link in your dead-end line has been lost
due to fire, flood or war.
The town clerk to whom you wrote for the information sends you a long handwritten letter
which is totally illegible.
The spelling of your European ancestor's name bears no relationship to its current
spelling or pronunciation.
None of the pictures in your recently deceased grmother's photo album have names written
on them.
No one in your family tree ever did anything noteworthy, owned property, was sued or was
named in wills.
You learn that your great aunt's executor just sold her life's collection of family
genealogical materials to a flea market dealer "somewhere in New York City"
Ink fades and paper deteriorates at a rate inversely proportional to the value of the data
recorded.
The 37 volume, sixteen thousand page history of your county of origin isn't indexed.
You finally find your gr grandparent's wedding records and discover that the brides'
father was named John Smith.
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