{"id":2263,"date":"2020-12-14T22:39:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T05:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2020-12-14T22:39:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T05:39:22","slug":"plague-pandemic-pestilence-all-scourges-outbreaks-and-epidemics-and-your-genealogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2020\/12\/14\/plague-pandemic-pestilence-all-scourges-outbreaks-and-epidemics-and-your-genealogy\/","title":{"rendered":"Plague, Pandemic, Pestilence\u2014all Scourges, Outbreaks, and Epidemics–and your Genealogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Pandemic<\/strong> is a plague, pestilence, scourge, outbreak, or epidemic that becomes a global disease usually affecting millions of people, with one million deaths or greater,\u00a0 and a major impact on the economic and political well-being of the many countries and their peoples.<\/p>\n

Pandemics interrupt and sometimes change dramatically the genealogy of the families to which you are trying to attach yourself. And few genealogy how-to-do-it books provide instruction\/guidance on how to deal with these rather common occurrences. Until DNA studies and records became the genealogy \u201cin\u201d thing and raised questions of descent and proof.<\/p>\n

So we have family histories that begin with the first-named person to arrive in this country (or even before). And follow down the pedigree lines to the present day\u2014usually without a break. Filling in the various generations with a continuous line of descent. And with a convenient section at the end for all of those of the name who do not seem to fit the lines of descent.<\/p>\n

Sometime ago, I was hired to trace the family descent from New Jersey back to Old Virginia the lineage of three cousins, who had been raised together as cousins often were. In the process of the research I discovered a second lineage that came through Pennsylvania and Delaware into Virginia. When I went to deliver my report, one cousin stated, \u201cWe don\u2019t care. We no longer need to know, because we are not related.\u201d When I asked how he knew that. He replied, \u201cWe had our DNA study done. We are not related!\u201d They took my written report, but declined to hear my interpretation of their genealogy\u2014they simply went home to their despair.<\/p>\n

Actually, there is still much to learn about pandemics and about DNA. The last word is not in on either! Here is a bibliography to launch your study:<\/p>\n

Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History<\/em><\/strong>. This book was updated with a new Afterword on the 100th<\/sup> Anniversary of 1918. New York: Penguin Random House, 2018. Previously issued in over five editions. The Flu of 1918 was also called the Spanish Flu. Updated in 2018 from experience with the H1N1 response, to include instructions on how to live through a pandemic\u2014wash your hands, cough into your elbow, isolate and quarantine people newly infected. More controversial: shut-down society, closing bars and restaurants, and closing schools. Barry considers the negative effects of closing society and schools down.<\/p>\n

Black, Kathryn. \u00a0In the Shadow of Polio: A Personal and Social History.<\/em><\/strong> New York: Addison-Wesley. 1996. This is an account of the impact of Polio on a young girl and her adult reflections on this dreaded virus.<\/p>\n

Park, Alice. \u201cThe Forgotten Plague: Tuberculosis the Ancient Killer and Emerging, Deadly Strains,\u201d Time Magazine<\/em><\/strong> (13 October 2018):54-61. A photo-essay, with selected captions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutbreak: 10 of the Worst Pandemics in History.\u201d \u00a0https:\/\/www.mphonline.org\/worst-pandemics-in-history\/<\/a>\u00a0 Staff of MPHOnline<\/a> provides authoritative articles for Masters of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Southard, Diahan. Your DNA Guide\u2014the Book. Step-by-step Plans to Connect You with your Family Using DNA<\/em><\/strong>. http:\/\/www.yourDNAguide.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 (2020). This book helps you reconstruct your family tree and enables adoptees to identify biological relatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Pandemic is a plague, pestilence, scourge, outbreak, or epidemic that becomes a global disease usually affecting millions of people, with one million deaths or greater,\u00a0 and a major impact on the economic and political well-being of the many countries … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[376,377,318],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-1918-influenza","tag-dna-proof-of-ancestry-proof-of-ancestry","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}