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From:
Subject: Thoughts on adding a wife
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:06:50 +0000


What I think about most is the death of the children. I have a flag for children who died before marriage age and the record is accented so I can see it easily. There are times when I see over half of the children dying, probably of an epidemic. One mother gave birth on the same day the 2 year old died. It's easy to imagine that grief drove her to early labor. There is one family I have that had 7 children on one day and I am sure a house full of noise and less than a month later the family consisted of the husband, a baby and a 9 year old. Can you imagine what it was like in that house? One of the most heart wrenching records I have seen in the census was a household that had an 86 year old grandfather the head of the household of 6 children, the youngest an infant, the oldest a girl who was 12. She was listed as "keeping house" and she wasn't going to school. There was certainly a sad story behind that record.

The records, especially the census are not dull and dry, they tell an incredible story. I'm gratefull for TMG which allows me to set flags and accents to help me see the pattern more easily.

Anne Hawn Smith

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