11 Apr Search for my ancestors- April 11, 2020
Good morning mortals,
We’re having to spend a lot more time thinking about our mortality. Remember the survival rate is 98.5%, so we should be thinking about life beyond this difficult time. However, thinking about your mortality isn’t all bad, as it causes us to do a better job with our estate planning, health-care, long-term housing choices, and most importantly to us here at Dancestors, capturing your families story! Call us today and we will help you get one of these items off of your to-do list and also get your #1 gift ready for Christmas 2021!
What really killed them?
One of the facts we gain from death certificates is the cause of death. However, we also get “contributing factors”. So while people may have died from pneumonia, they had contributing factors like arteriosclerosis, diabetes, and high blood pressure. This can help us with decisions, with our disease prevention dollars, such as do we go after the cause or the contributors?
Decades from now when researchers look at death certificates from 2020, will they conclude that all of these folks died from COVID-19, or will they attribute their deaths due to the underlying health conditions, such as respiratory illness, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and a host of other risk factors?
For many of the 80+ year-old folks, COVID- 19 may become the substitute for the flu, pneumonia, stroke. etc. that often is the end mark of these other diseases and conditions. Reach out to Dancestors at 214-914-3598, and see what we find when we retrieve your ancestor’s death certificates.
The Mystery of ‘Excess Fatality’
Death rates are exploding globally, and the coronavirus is just a fraction of the explanation.
Read in New York Magazine: https://apple.news/A_41T4Ys1TqSDGXLKh_MGLA
Cleaning up the DNA
I remember when we first moved to DFW, that I saw a billboard for biological cleaning services, and I thought “how often do people need to do biological cleaning, that they can justify the expense of a billboard to advertise?”
I later discovered that relatives on both sides of my mom’s family, 3rd cousins in both cases owned businesses in CA and UT that provided these services. So whether it’s cleaning it up or using to trace ancestors apparently “DNA is in our DNA”.
Crime-scene cleaner: Biggest mistake people make when coronavirus cleaning Hazardous-cleanup CEO Erick McCallum has seen it all when it comes to dangerous cleanup jobs. He says there is a simple way people can avoid cross-contamination in their homes, plus tips on how to clean.
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/ASKYUTAxMSG2E9x-Ggcfvpg
We were looking forward to our June trip to Sweden where…
we would meet my 3rd cousins, check out the family home where my Grandfather Nelson was born in, and visiting the country where 18% of my DNA originated.
Early on in this pandemic, a childhood friend who lives in Stockholm had told me that Sweden was taking a different approach to the coronavirus than the rest of Scandinavia, and even the rest of the world. Here’s an update on how Sweden is doing. Meanwhile, we’ve deferred our trip out a year.
Sweden Girds for Thousands of Deaths Amid Laxer Virus Response
Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/A_gxXiR09T6–iHGk5AvSxg
Using DNA to find our ancestor’s final resting place!
Anonymous no more: combining genetics with genealogy to identify the dead in unmarked graves
In Quebec, gravestones did not come into common use until the second half of the 19th century, so historical cemeteries contain many unmarked graves. Inspired by colleagues at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, a team of researchers in genetics, archaeology, and demography from three Quebec universities conducted a study in which they combined genealogical information from BALSAC (a Quebec
Read in SCIENMAG: https://apple.news/AYS7s3-hhR_-mIOcUi9Dasg
What about the census note I received in the mail saying I needed to go online?
My advice and request is that you fill it out not just because it’s legally required, drives your state’s representation in the house and the electoral college, but because 72 years from now, your great grandchildren may be interested in knowing about you. Back in the day, the census was done in the summer months when roads could be more easily traveled. If your family was relocating during the summer of the decade, then they could be missed and not included in any census, since the census takers didn’t generally go looking for folks in wagons heading west or even back east.
Did you know the census was taken, and then hand-copied, and that was the back-up in the pre-digital world? The 1890 census backups, ended up being destroyed in a 1921 fire, and then through bureaucratic blunder, the originals were also destroyed in the 1930s.
