Saturday, January 25, 2025

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Is the Most Unusual Cause of Death You Have Discovered?

I have to veer a little off to the side for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision

1.  What is the most unusual cause of death you have discovered for your ancestors?

2.  Tell us about the most unusual cause of death you found in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

The reason I have to veer off a little is because I haven't found any particularly unusual causes of death in my own family, for my ancestors or collateral relatives.  And while I didn't find an unusual cause of death in my half-sister's family, I did find a situation regarding deaths that is worthy of note.

A few years ago I wrote about the time I printed out a five-generation family tree for my half-sister's mother's side of the family and discovered that not a single man in the family had reached the age of 60.  Every man but one had died of a heart attack by the age of 59.  So, not an unusual cause of death, but an unusual number of the same type.

At the time I made this grisly discovery, that cousin had not yet reached 59.  I never learned whether he had made the same observation about the men in his family, but he retired before turning 60.  He lived to the ripe old age of 79, dying just shy of his 80th birthday.

During my research for others, the most unusual (and unexpected) cause of death I have found was described thusly:

In case you're having trouble reading that, it's:

(a) Shock, Traumatic

Due to (b) Hemorrhage & Concussion of Brain

Due to (c) Multiple injuries of head

And in case you were wondering, the coroner's jury did come back with a verdict of homicide.

I would like to think that is still considered an unusual cause of death.

4 comments:

  1. With modern medicine, that cousin probably had better health care than his ancestors. There are far fewer early-age death from heart attacks now than in the 40s-70s.

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    Replies
    1. True, but two men of his age group still died from early-age heart attacks. I don't know if Jimmy took advantage of healthcare possibilities that his brother and cousin did not. The family still has a scary track record.

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  2. Homicide certainly qualifies as an unusual cause of death in a family. Also, the family history of heart attacks before 60 is similar to my mother-in-law's siblings where all her brothers except the youngest one plus a couple of nephews, all died of heart attacks in their 40s and early 50s. Definitely some heredity at work there. Her youngest brother changed his lifestyle after seeing his brothers pass away and he lived a much monger life, dying at age 73 of cancer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cancer is certainly not a good way to die, but 73 is a vast improvement over 40's or early 50's.

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