Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

They say it takes a village to rear a child. My 2nd great grandfather, John Alexander Dean, was sure in need of one when Mollie Boyce, his wife (and my 2nd great grandmother), died at the young age of 36 in 1906, leaving behind 5 children to raise. Mollie, John, Chester, and baby Benjamin Dean, Big Wheeling Creek, West Virginia, circa 1900. The Deans lived up on a hill from Big Wheeling Creek in West Virginia. John was a blacksmith by trade who also took care of his own farm and raced horses on the side. Mollie was the homekeeper. In addition to raising 4 strapping young boys and 1 beautiful girl, the Deans had also given birth to a set of twins, 1 boy and 1 girl, Arthur and Mary. Unfortunately, the twins took sick in infancy. The ailment they suffered from differs across sources from thrush to tuberculosis to measles, but whatever afflicted them turned fatal. Sadly, part of the reason may have been lack of medical attention, as they were not the only ones in dire straits. Mollie, too,...

Have you ever heard of this commemorative holiday? It’s also known as the Glorious Twelfth, and is celebrated in Ireland each year to honor the Protestant king William III (the former Prince William of Orange)’s victory over the Catholic king, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in the year 1690. During that year, the battle actually took place on the 1st of July, however, since that time, our calendars have changed from using the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, thus shifting the observation date to the 12th of July.  James II’s reign was the last time a king of the Roman Catholic faith has ruled as monarch over the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It should be noted that modern analysis of documents from that time suggest that soldiers of both Catholic and Protestant beliefs fought on both sides. Historically, this day has seen its fair share of violence on the streets of Ireland (particularly during the ‘Troubles’ of the 1960s-1990s), as it’s a quite contro...

It has only been in recent years that multiple states and regions in the U.S. pivoted from celebrating the yearly anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492, to honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day in its place. Had I written this article just a few years ago, I would have used this day to share the lore about my 3rd great-grandmother Margaret Marshall’s Native American roots. However, that family tale has since been debunked , leaving me with zero genetic ties to the indigenous peoples of America. However, although my DNA lacks this association, my extended family tree boasts an interesting connection to the Piscataway Indians, the natives living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland before and during the development of the English colonies in the early 1600s. The Piscataway were an Algonquian-speaking nation, thought to have close ties with the Powhatans (you know, the tribe known to us in the somewhat true, somewhat false, fairytale story o...