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Random Searches and Interesting Facts

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A little bit of history that may help your search or answer some questions

2/3/2014

 
  Family searches can be frustrating.  Before 1900 it was not uncommon for people to interchange their first and middle names , birth dates were not always recorded or remembered so approximations were used.  Immigrants were often illiterate and uneducated.  Many could not read or write and had little concept of when they were born or what their true age was.   Many people who want to find their roots will follow and record only their direct line, forgetting or discounting siblings and sibling families.  One should remember though that prior to the 1940's there was no social security or guaranteed retirement.  Families had to depend on each other.  Often a parent can be found living with the families of their grown children.  Siblings who have not married or who have no children would live with siblings .  Poor houses were also popular throughout the US during the 1800's.  Children of indigent parents or orphaned would find themselves in large orphanages or on the orphan trains sent out west to help on farms, or shuffled off to relation who had more resources and needed the help on farms, or in the home.  Epidemics periodically swept the US and took many lives.  Entire families died out and disappeared from the record over night.  Children died of croup, asthma, accidents, and , some times, of child abuse.  Laws did not protect children the way they do now.   School was not compulsory  in the US before 1852 when Massachusetts passed laws to mandate all towns in Mass. provide children with an education.  If parents did not send their children to school they could be fined or their children taken and apprenticed to a family that would provide a "proper education".  The following shows  the date by state that school became mandatory Alabama  -1915         Louisiana-1910       Oklahoma-1907      Alaska-1929      Maine-1875     Oregon-1889
Arizona-1899            Maryland- 1902         Pennsylvania-1895        Arkansas-1909     Massachusetts-1852
Rhode Island-1883            California-1874      Michigan-1871      South Carolina-1915     Colorado-1889
  Minnesota-1885      South Dakota- 1883     Connecticut- 1872      Mississippi-1918      Tennessee-1905
Delaware-1907       Missouri-1905           Texas-1915       District of Columbia-1864       Montana-1883
Utah-1890       Florida-1915    Nebraska-1887         Vermont- 1867     Georgia-1916       Nevada-1873
Virginia-1908      Hawaii-1893         New Hampshire-1871         Washington-1871      Idaho-1887    
New Jersey-1875         West Virginia- 1897     Illinois-1883       New Mexico- 1891      Wisconsin-1879
Indiana-1897      New York-1874     Wyoming-1876     Iowa-1902     North Carolina- 1907     Kansas-1874
North Dakota-1883      Kentucky-1896      Ohio-1877

Epidemics in the US 1657-1919
Measles:  Boston- 1657,1687,1713,1729,1739/1740,/Connecticut, NY, PA., SC.-1747,North America-1759,1775,
Philadelphia & NY-1788
Yellow Fever: New York 1690, 1803,Philadelphia-1793,1794,1796/1797,1798, Nation wide-1841,1850,1852(8,000 people died of yellow fever in one summer),1855,New Orleans-1847,1878,
Jacksonville Florida-1886
Influenza:World wide-1732,1733,1775,1776,1781,1782,1847,1848,1857,1858,1859,1918( more people were hospitalized during WWI from influenza than from the war.  US army training camps succumbed with 80 percent death rate in camp) Vermont-1793, North America & West Indies-17611850,1851,1873,1874,1875, Virginia-1793 (500 people died in 4 weeks.
Bilious disorder:Delaware-1783
Small Pox:South Carolina-1738, Pennsylvania-1860,1861,
Typhus:Philadelphia-1837,Plymouth PA.-1885
Cholera:Nationwide-1831,1832,New York & Major cities-1832,North America-1848,1849, Columbus Ohio-1833, New York City-1834,1849,Cole County Illinois-1851, great plains-1851, Missouri-1851
Unspecified Fever:Pennsylvania-1793,Nationwide-1820,1821,1822,1823
Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis, and Washington DC experienced a series of recurring epidemics of Small Pox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever and Yellow fever -1865-1873

Tomorrow look for a list of   persons from Paterson New Jersey who died in the epidemic of 1849. 

  




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