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Epidemics
Epidemics have always had a great influence on
people and thus influencing the
genealogists trying to trace them. Many
cases of people disappearing from
records can be traced to dying during an
epidemic or moving away from the
affected area. Some of the major
epidemics in the United States are
listed:
1732 33 Worldwide: Influenza
1741 42 Virginia fever
1759 North America
(areas inhabited by white people):
Measles
1761 61 North America & West
Indies: Influenza
1772 North America:
Measles
1775 North America
(especially hard in New England):
Epidemic (unknown)
1775 76 Worldwide: Influenza
1781 82 Worldwide: Influenza
(one of worst flu epidemics)
1793 Virginia: Influenza
(kills 500 people in 5 counties in 4
weeks)
1820 23 Nationwide: "fever"
(starts on Schuylkill River, PA &
spreads)
1831 32 Nationwide: Asiatic
Cholera (brought by English emigrants)
1841 Nationwide: Yellow
Fever (especially severe in South)
1847 48 Worldwide: Influenza
1848 49 North America:
Cholera
1850 Nationwide: Yellow
Fever
1850 51 North America:
Influenza
1852 Nationwide: Yellow
Fever (New Orleans: 8,000 die in summer)
1855 Nationwide (many
parts): Yellow Fever
1857 59 Worldwide: Influenza
(one of disease's greatest epidemics)
1865 73 Philadelphia, New
York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore,
Memphis,
Washington D.C.: a series of recurring
epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus,
Typhoid, Scarlet Fever & Yellow Fever
1873 75 North America &
Europe: Influenza
1918 Worldwide:
Influenza (high point year) More people
hospitalized in World War I
from Influenza than wounds. US Army
training camps became death camps with
80 percent death rate in some camps. |
