In case you ever wondered why a large number of your ancestors disappeared during a certain period in history, this might help.

Epidemics have always had a great influence on people - and thus influencing, as well, 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 below:

• 1657 Boston Measles
• 1687 Boston Measles
• 1690 New York Yellow Fever
• 1713 Boston Measles
• 1729 Boston Measles
• 1732-3 Worldwide Influenza
• 1738 South Carolina Smallpox
• 1739-40 Boston Measles
• 1747 CT, NY, PA, SC Measles
• 1759 N. America [areas inhabited by white people] Measles
• 1761 N. America and West Indies Influenza
• 1772 N. America Measles
• 1775 N. America [especially hard in the Northeast] epidemic Unknown
• 1775-6 Worldwide [one of the worst epidemics] Influenza
• 1783 Dover, DE ["extremely fatal"] Bilious Disorder
• 1788 Philadelphia and New York Measles
• 1793 Vermont [a "putrid" fever] and Influenza
• 1793 VA [killed 500 in 5 counties in 4 weeks] Influenza
• 1793 Philadelphia [one of the worst epidemics] Yellow Fever
• 1793 Harrisburg, PA [many unexplained deaths] Unknown
• 1793 Middletown, PA [many mysterious deaths] Unknown
• 1794 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever
• 1796-7 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever
• 1798 Philadelphia, PA [one of the worst] Yellow Fever
• 1803 New York Yellow Fever
• 1820-3 Nationwide [starts-Schuylkill River and spreads] "Fever"
• 1831-2 Nationwide [brought by English emigrants] Asiatic Cholera
• 1832 NY City and other major cities Cholera
• 1833 Columbus, OH [cholera outbreak]
• 1834 New York City [cholera outbreak]
• 1837 Philadelphia Typhus
• 1841 Nationwide [especially severe in the south] Yellow Fever
• 1847 New Orleans Yellow Fever
• 1847-8 Worldwide Influenza
• 1848-9 North America Cholera
• 1849 New York [cholera outbreak]
• 1850 Nationwide Yellow Fever
• 1850-1 North America Influenza
• 1851 Coles Co., IL, The Great Plains, and Missouri [cholera outbreak]
• 1852 Nationwide [New Orleans-8,000 die in summer] Yellow Fever
• 1855 Nationwide [many parts] Yellow Fever
• 1857-9 Worldwide [one of the greated epidemics] Influenza
• 1860-1 Pennsylvania Smallpox
• 1865-73 Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Orleans; Smallpox - Baltimore, Memphis, Washington DC; Cholera, series of recurring epidemics of Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever, Yellow Fever
• 1873-5 N. America and Europe Influenza
• 1878 New Orleans [last great epidemic] Yellow Fever
• 1885 Plymouth, PA Typhoid
• 1886 Jacksonville, FL Yellow Fever
• 1918 Worldwide [high point year] more people were Influenza hospitalized in WWI from this epidemic than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps, with 80% death rate in some camps.

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