52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 43: Cause of Death in My Family Tree

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

We often learn about the cause of someone’s death from a death certificate. The doctor fills out this portion, often using cursive handwriting and using medical terms that are hard to discern. I’m always happy to find a death certificate that has been typed!

Following the causes of death throughout our ancestral line can be helpful in tracing our health history.

My parents:

Father: Myocardial Infarction (10 min) and Coronary Artery Disease (30 mos). Actually he had that for 30 years. What the death certificate doesn’t say is he was found dead in his home and may have been dead a couple of days. He was found on Saturday and last seen on Wednesday evening. He was 77.

Mother: Cardiac Arrhythmia (min) due to Pulmonary hypertension (weeks) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (4 yr). Also renal failure. She was 57.

Paternal grandfather, William C Hork: Suppurative Tracheobronchitis (months) and Bullous Emphysemia (months). He was 68. I never met him.

Paternal grandmother, Anna M Sullivan: This one was written in “doctor scribble” and my guess it was about the heart. There was no contributing causes. She was 86.

If you can help?

Maternal grandfather, Tom J Johnston: He was 60 years old. He died of Coronary Pulmonale from advanced pulmonary emphysema.

Maternal grandmother, Pansy L Lancaster: She was 99.99 (one month shy of 100). She died of Cardiac Arrest (sec), due to Renal failure (mos), due to Congestive heart failure (yrs) & coronary artery disease (yrs).

Paternal great-grandfather, Johan Anton Hork: from a news article, he drank carbolic acid. He was 62.

Paternal great-grandmother, Julia A Sievert: Cirrhosis of Liver. She was 73 years old.

Paternal great-grandfather, John H Sullivan: Myocarditis, coronary arteriosus. He was almost 79 years old.

Paternal great-grandmother, Anna M. Gleeson: Melancholia, contributing factor exhaustion. She was almost 52 years old.

Maternal great-grandfather, Thomas N. Johnston: Acute dilation of the heart due to hypertension. He was 65.

Maternal great-grandmother, Nell L Hutson: no death certificate was found and the obituary did not state. She was 31.

Maternal great-grandfather, George W. Lancaster: I didn’t have his death certificate, so went to FamilySearch to find it. He died of Pneumonia hypostatic, due to Ascites, undetermined origin and also due to arteriosclerosis. He was 71.

Maternal great-grandmother, Lela A. Loveless: More doctor scratch: cerebral toomborio (7 hours), due to comatous (which might be comatose) condition (9 days). She actually had Parkinson Disease, but was not mentioned here. She was 55.

Looks like most were due to heart failure, which is usually what finally kills us, even if we have some other underlying cause.

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