23 November 2011

An epidemic in Mulhouse?

My very astute mother pointed something out to me, from my recent post on the children of Gaspard Weiss.

Looking at the last five children in the family:

  • Paul, born 1791, presumably in Mulhouse. Possibly died when he was seven years old i.e. 1798.
  • Fréderic, born 1792, presumably in Mulhouse. Possibly died when he was six years old i.e. 1798.
  • Jean Antoine, born 1794 in Mulhouse. Possibly died when he was four years old i.e. 1798.
  • Guillaume, born 1797, presumably in Mulhouse. Possibly died when he was only one year old i.e. 1798.
  • Rosine Angélique (she appears to have been known as Angélique), born 13 April 1798 in Mulhouse. Her mother [Marie] died four days after the birth of Angélique, presumably from complications from the birth - in 1798.

All apparently in 1798. This suggests that perhaps they all succumbed to an illness, and that possibly Marie did not die as a result of childbirth itself, but perhaps weakened after childbirth, succumbing to an illness... I've looked and haven't found any references to any epidemics in Mulhouse in 1798 but we live in an age of antibiotics and so it is possible that they might all have succumbed to an illness which would be considered relatively minor these days. We'll never know, but it's something to ponder.

I wonder whether it is possible to get something like a death certificate for Marie? It would be just my luck that it wouldn't specify a cause of death!

6 comments:

  1. Prue, have you considered seeing if any of the microfilms available through the LDS church might cover your family. It will depend on their religion but there are a few microfilms for the area. (Search by place name in the Familysearch catalogue if you've not had to use this before). I've found that burial information often include cause of death. Contact me on my blog if this is unclear or unfamiliar. Pauleen

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  2. Unfortunately they don't come up. Sigh. : )

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  3. Prue are you saying they aren't coming up in the index search? Has the film actually been indexed. Many of mine haven't...worth checking out. Sorry if i'm telling you something you already know.

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  4. Ok, so perhaps I wasn't understanding exactly what you meant Pauleen. I couldn't find their names in the index search.

    Searching now for Mulhouse under Deaths, there is a handful of names that come up in the Germany Deaths and Burials for Mulhouse, with various spellings of Mulhouse (where it references either Alsace, Haut-Rhin or France because the others are for another place called Mühlhausen in Germany). I would guess that means that Mulhouse specifically has not been indexed.

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  5. What I'd do Prue is to go back to the main familysearch webpage then click on the catalogue tab and search place names for Mulhouse. If your ancestors' religion features then I reckon it would be worth the $US7 to order the film into your nearest LDS family research centre/library. You never know, you might get lucky.

    If you want me to talk further about this you could put a note on my blog as I don't always see the follow-up comments.

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