General Chat

Yes,and I wish I hadn't found out until after my dad had died, then It would have been ok
Janet

Ah my friend has been telling me that marasmus can also be a medical illness that prevents nutrition being taken into the body so it can be that this is the case rather than neglectful or poverty stricken parents.

My Dad's eldest sibling died at 23 days old in 1913 of "1. marasmus due to malassimilation of food 2. infantile convulsions".Mother present at death.

She went on to have 14 more children all surviving to adulthood.

I wonder if the poor boy had an allergy to milk.............she couldn't breast feed any of her children according to my aunt.

Very sad:(

Thanks for an interesting thread David:)

That Marasmus illness baffled me when I came across it for the first time in my tree (have since found it a few more times). But in that family I first found it - two of their children died of it, both under the age of 2yrs.

But the strange thing is that the father was working as an engineer and the mother was a bookfolder, so surely they must have been able to afford to feed the kids? I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps their mother was neglecting them. Then again, if she was working, who was looking after the kids?

Does get the old brain cells working overtime, doesn't it?

Athena

Dee and Kay.... thank you..... mwah!! You might have given me a chisel for my wall........ I have been whacking away with the equivalent of a paper teaspoon......... not at all effective!

Love

Daff xxxx

I dont know, I didnt see that,,,,,,,,

,,but it was in a family history magazine abvout 5 years ago now,,,,,,,,,,it made me wonder,,,,,,!!

That is awful, Kay. I do think it's likely that many poor parents saw their children differently to the way we see them today. When this great uncle of mine died, my great grandmother, quite a hard character, had four older children all under eight, little money and in what we would call slum accomodation. I really can't see her being devastated at losing a child.

I read an intresting artical once about the Penny Insurance,, on children in the 1880s,in that shortly after taking out an insurance on a child it would die,,,,,,,,,!!often 2 or three in a family..........afterwards the Insurances policies changed their views on this type of thing and the age was raised to 16 before a claim could be made.............and that still is policy today ,,its what we call an endowment payable at age 16,,

It's possible, Dee - although I do know the family were in one of the poorest areas of Islington.

I think one of the saddest things in my tree was when my 66 year old great x4 grandfather fell from a haystack and broke his neck early one morning. Later that day in the same village, his eight year old grand-daughter died from scarletina. Must have been a very hard day for the family.

Shelly (and possibly David too), hearing of deaths of children in infancy, particularly, as in Shelly's case, where there were more than one in the same family and especially if the cause was malnutrition, makes me wonder whether the children actually had cystic fibrosis.

Such children cannot absorb their food properly and therefore are sickly and do not gain weight. Both parents must carry the gene (though neither are necessarily affected themselves), which might explain, in Shelly's case, why the second marriage produced healthy children.

Just a thought!

Dee
x

I find that some death certs leave more questions unanswered.

There was one of mine who was a Cab proprietor who died after a leg amputation.....inquest papers needed

Then another who died through falling down the stairs .....how did that happen?

One owned an Inn and died by a blow to the head.....what happened there?

One jumped from an eight story building.....why?

On my husband's side one of his GGrandmother's married 3 times each husband dying within a year of marriage.....in all 8 children were born but only one survived.....one of the husband's was murdered by an old boyfriend...have yet to find out what the others died of....the mind boggles

some death certs tell me things I really don't want to know....like Cancer being the cause of many deaths right back to first registration as well as brain tumours and also the young ages of some of the deaths of adults

So much still to find out....... but at least we are thinking those who have passed especially those who didn't have much of a life before they passed on.

Gail, the trial transcripts are fascinating aren't they. My Joseph Blumson was transported in 1833 for nicking a shawl, which seems a bit excessive to me. Luckily, he did ok for himself in the end.

Well you live and learn, Gail - I know it was a very poor area but I really thought things were better by 1910. How sad.

Kay, that's like one of the saddest cases in my tree. She was born in 1853 and in 1861 is ''deaf and dumb from birth'' and afterwards it transpires she was deaf and dumb and paralysed from birth. I can't imagine what condition or what her life must have been like but she did live until she was 40 and it must be a tribute to her parents that they kept her with them until her death in their little cottage down a dirt track in the middle of nowhere.

Jac, me wise old mucker:) I know you're right and I know I'm making it sound like this is the first sad death cert I've ever had but every now and again there are some that just really get to you more than others aren't there? I was a bit like this when I found two aunts of the previous generation who died of tb when they were 15 and 22 - I'd spent so long trying to find marriages for them and tracking them down on other censuses because I knew they'd survived childhood that it was a real blow when I found them.
It is funny the things you wonder about them - I always think of Pip in Great Expectations imagining what his parents were like from the inscriptions on their gravestone lol.

Do you reckon this will have been reported yet, Budgie:)) It's a bit of an extra thrill when you find out families are inter married isn't it? I'm not sure why. I have so many death certs to get - I really need to have more cash. I'm very interested no to see what caused the deaths of this boy's twin siblings. I know that a neighbour registered the births and judging from the indices numbers they did live a short time.

Yep its sad really,,,OH blood line Gtgrandparents ahd 8 children but only 3 survived all girls,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!!
5 boys died of.

Various things including----none fuctional brain at 5 months old,!!!
I have just this morinng found a granddaughter to my GtGtgrandmother........... in a home miles from her birth and family she has x deaf.blind ,imdacile,marked against her,,,,,,,,,,,poor girl,,,,,,,,,,,,,

But I think lots of death causes back then would be defined differently today,,,,,,,,,,,as some babies were given -sexual disease as a cause of death,!!!

It's a sad old game this family tree business Uggers. Excitement when you find them, and often upset when you see what they died of.

Upsetting though it often is, it is surely much more fulfilling to know how they died, why they died, where they lived and gain as much knowledge about their lives (often very short) as we can. It's easy-peasy to dob down a load of dates, without thought to the people's lives - how boring would that be?

My grt-gran didnt marry until 29, had three children in 3 years and died after the 3rd child (who also died one month later). I know she was up the duff before she got married (!!!) as the first child was born only 2 months after the wedding. I find it fascinating to imagine just why she married so late in life - was she tired of being the spinster daughter, was she ugly and no one fancied her, was she determined not to be the one daughter left to look after the aged parents??? )))))) I dont suppose I will ever know the reason, but I do know through contact with others on here that she had red-hair - and although I dont know what she looked like I have a picture of her in my mind, with lovely ginger locks!

Dont be too sad over the causes of death on certs. you receive - you are honouring them by recording their details for posterity - I wonder if anyone will do that for us?

Bi for now )))))))

Jac

There are some really awful stories aren't there? Everyone's right though - you do have to find out and it does give a bit of respect to have found out and it be known about.

It's not the death of a child that shocks me so much - previous generations of mothers frequently buried children of various ages who had died from tb amongst other things - it's more that it was so late. I suppose I imagined that infant mortalities from malnutrition were much rarer by the C20th

I had one die age 5 in 1895 of

Cancrum Ortis, Septaecemia, exhaustion a disease that is now only found in third world countries

Looking it up I found the following ( and also a picture on the internet which was quite upsetting )

From Old Medical Terms
Cancrum otis - A severe, destructive, eroding ulcer of the cheek and lip. In the last century it was seen in delicate, ill-fed, ill-tended children between the ages of two and five. The disease was the result of poor hygiene. It was often fatal. The disease could, in a few days, lead to gangrene of the lips, cheeks, tonsils, palate, tongue, and even half the face; teeth would fall from their sockets. Synonyms: canker, water canker, noma, gangrenous stomatitis, gangrenous ulceration of the mouth.

It is so sad, isn't it? My gt gt grandmother was one of 13 children... only 3 survived past 3 years of age, two lived to happy old age.... but the third I cannot find after the age of 11, but haven't found a death for her yet.

While I was looking for my Grandfather's death record, I came across a whole family, including little twin boys of two.... killed in the blitz I believe (I did some background stuff and there was very heavy bombing in that area). I sobbed for days over that one, and they weren't even related to me.

I have printed out their details, as it sort of gives a point to their short little lives, somehow.

Love

Daff xxxx

That's awful, Rose and that's just how I'm feeling.

Gail, you have to try and understand it like that don't you - the time and circumstances and everything. I know my great grand mother wasn't a good mother but then she had a hard poor life and eleven children. It's no wonder they were tough. I do wonder how sad they were to lose a child when their existences were so hard.