So many young deaths

[ElizabethHerts]

Some families really had a horrid time of it.

I have been investigating the family of OH's 2xgt grandmother, Mary Burgon or Burgan, who came from Wentworth in Yorkshire.

Her parents were Joseph and Sarah Burgan/Burgon, and there were eight children.

Sarah died in 1839, aged 39. She was very young when she married, probably only about 15.

On the 1841 Census Joseph is there with 4 children - William, Charlotte, Jane and Martha. By 1851 he is by himself. William married, as did Mary (whom I can't find in 1841).

However, I have found all the burials for these:

Sarah Burgan mother Sep 1838 39
Ann Aug 1840 25
John Oct 1840 20
Harriett Feb 1841 23
Jane Nov 1842 10
Martha Nov 1842 6
Charlotte possibly 1850


Five children died in 2 and a half years. I wonder what they died of. However, I'm not sure whether my curiosity is up to the expense of 5 death certificates!

Poor Joseph, it must have been devastating for him.

[Lindsay]

I suppose people coped because they had to, but it must have been so hard. In one line alone on my tree:

My 3xg-grandmother lost 2 children in the space of 3 weeks, both from smallpox. The youngest was 6 weeks old. Only 1 of the 5 children I know about lived to adulthood.

Her daughter lost her husband and 2 of her 4 children in the space of a year (the youngest child had been born posthumously)

Her daughter, my g-grandmother, lost 4 of her 8 children in the space of 2 years - and that was as late as the 1890s.

They lived in the East End so perhaps it's not surprising - on my OH's tree they were mainly ag labs and they didn't seem to suffer so many children's deaths.

[Nell]

Deaths in the same month always suggest to me that they died of the same thing, though when I have bought certs this hasn't always been so.

Whilst researching a tree of a family who married into mine quite a bit, in a Gloucestershire village I found burials over a 3 month period one summer of several siblings, cousins and second cousins. I am wondering if it was an outbreak of some kind. It could have been anything - I've also seen burial records for children which give cause of death as "summer diarrhoea".