When they all die young

[crawfie]

I have one family (mother , father, 3 children) who all died within 12 days of each other in 1783, in Netherlands. No death certificates available at that time, but I was sure it had to have been something out of the ordinary. I finally found out that there had been a dysentery epidemic in the village which killed off 108 people, in a place with a population of 600.

[Olde Crone]

Crawfie, I have something similar in my tree. The first six children all died within 23 days of each other, of smallpox. (Noted in the burial register, many others dying in a two month period). The parents went on to have another 13 children, only three survived to adulthood, only one had children and the mother outlived all her children. Interestingly, the mother grew up on a dairy farm and I wonder if that gave her immunity to smallpox.

OC

[HarrysMum]

There was an epidemic in the Hawkshead area. The PRs actually have “ he brought the sickness here” or words to that effect on one burial. Something you don’t really want on your headstone.

Toni……I have read the same thing about broken heart illness. William Wordsworth wrote his first ballad about Mary Rigge.

I did get a death cert for one of my husband’s uncles who died at five days old. Turns out he had a protein C and S deficiency which caused bleeding into the skin. Must have been horrific for his mother.