Genealogy Chat

There are about 5-15 plague cases p.a. in the western USA - about 14% are fatal, usually when treatment is delayed. Mortality for untreated cases is 50-60%, although untreated pneumonic and septicemic forms are usually fatal. In the pneumonic form the lungs are infected, and then coughed droplets from an infected person makes the disease airborne.

Ref: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/resources/plagueFactSheet.pdf


On the US PBS TV network, there's a show called Secrets of the Dead. I suspect the episode of concern here might have been purchased from the UK, since the star of the show is really the Derbyshire village of Eyam (about 20m SW of Sheffield) and its story during the last serious plague outbreak in the UK. Genealogical research identified the survivors, and the DNA of their descendants was tested by UCL. This is the village referred to be some earlier posts.

Here's an excerpt from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/clues.html
(Incidentally videos for US TVs don't work in the UK, so be aware of that if you're tempted to buy the video)

In September 1665, George Viccars, a tailor in the small, central-England village of Eyam, received a parcel of cloth ridden with plague-infected fleas from London. Four days later, Viccars died. By the end of the month, five more villagers had succumbed to the plague. The panicked town turned to their rector, William Mompesson, who persuaded them to quarantine the entire village to prevent the bacterium from spreading throughout the region. It seemed like suicide. A year later, the first outsiders ventured into Eyam, expecting a ghost town. Yet, miraculously, half the town had survived. How did so many villagers live through the most devastating disease known to man?
Local Eyam lore tells befuddling stories of plague survivors who had close contact with the bacterium but never caught the disease. Elizabeth Hancock buried six children and her husband in a week, but never became ill. The village gravedigger handled hundreds of plague-ravaged corpses, but survived as well. Could these people have somehow been immune to the Black Death?
...[Knowing who died and who lived through the early years of the plague is somewhat problematic. Deaths among the general English population were not recorded in the 14th Century -- the height of the Plague -- and most communities did not begin recording parish registers until around 1538. Fortunately, Eyam began keeping a parish register in 1630. Thus historian John Clifford began by examining the register, noting everyone who was alive in 1665, the year the plague came to Eyam. He searched for evidence of life through the year 1725 -- marriages, baptisms, burials that took place years after the plague had left the village. Deleting the names of those lost during the plague period, he was able to determine who the survivors were.
DNA samples could only be collected from direct descendents of the plague survivors. ] ...
Dr. Stephen O'Brien of the National Institutes of Health in Washington D.C. suggests they were. His work with HIV and the mutated form of the gene CCR5, called "delta 32," led him to Eyam. In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body. O'Brien thought this principle could be applied to the plague bacteria, which affects the body in a similar manner. To determine whether the Eyam plague survivors may have carried delta 32, O'Brien tested the DNA of their modern-day descendents. What he found out was startling. ...

Hi Colin,

that's not as far-fetched as it initially sounds.

Studies on twins who got separated at birth and particularly the ones who got adopted by families with radically different income levels are highly prized.

Their preferences for flavours, colours and everything up to the way in which they behave remains remarkably similar, stoking the "nature versus nurture" debate, somewhat.

If their brains really are 'wired up' the same say, then their decision-making probably works the same way, so they independently arrive at the same answer, to a subjective question, like "what name would you like to have".


M

Hi Julia,

I think I have heard of this.

If I understood correctly, it didn't particularly matter what was believed in but the activities which surround it - ceremonial, ritual, social gathering, a feeling of belonging to something, contentment over the final destination of the 'spirit' of the departed, all added up to a gneral sense of well being.

Comparisons of believer groups with avowed-atheist groups showed statistically significant health benefits for the believers group.

Don't read too much into this too quickly. Stress has been proved (I think) to reduce the efficiency of the immune system, sometimes leading to recurrent illness. If handed a health questionnaire (as in the above statistical study), these are going to be mentioned and the person gets ranked accordingly.

If the believer group have lower stress levels, thanks to the sense of well-being brought on by the activities I mentioned, then that might explain the better health rating.

As to a DNA link, I am slightly dubious but I haven't gone deep enough into the literature to see what was actually being claimed about it.

It is not inconceivable that a gene does exist which influences brain development in the womb and causes a either physical structure or a particular pattern of cell connections to develop. This 'hardware' later becomes responsible for creating, or influencing, behaviour patterns or, perhaps, merely a 'disposition towards belief'.

The person still has to have an upbringing where the belief system is taught and encouraged. Left to their own devices, they might manage to develop one of their own.

They might even end up believing that they were an atheist. (Sorry, that's mischievous but I couldn't resist it).

Incidentally, foetal development is an under-appreciated part of the explanation of how we get so much difference between ourselves and chimpanzees, out of the fabled 1-2% difference in DNA. The genes which say "you are now a liver cell, make copies of yourself and don't stop until I say so" and all other tissue types are amongst the 'in-common' variety. The genes which make us human-shaped only have to govern those processes so it doesn't require as many of them as you might imagine.

The ones which affect facial appearance (hence familial resemblence) are tremendously important, possibly dedicated to convincing the father that this one is his. That probably evolved before language did, let alone the concept of monogamy.

Pure conjecture on my part but I'd like to think that the remainder of the 1-2% is mostly brain-related.



M
(Apologies for going so far off topic)

Mark, Heather that's fascinating.

Mark be interested on your take on the God Delusion although not exactly DNA related.

There is a - semi-famous - documented example of one village which voluntarily locked itself off from the outside world, rather than let anyone leave, so as to spare their neighbouring villages from what they were suffering.

You can look at this in two ways:-
Selflessness, with a genuine concern for the health and wellbeing of other people, even if they were 'strangers'. Plus they had no fears over their own deaths as they would be going to heaven.

Selfishness, of a sort. If it was common practice, at the time, to always "marry someone from the village up the road" (geneticists will tell you that this is good for the 'gene pool' as genes can thus creep large distances, over many generations and novel genes come into the village from outside) then this means parts of their extended families would be living in the nearby villages and the strategy they adopted assured the survival of their cousins, however many times-removed.

The "Selfish Gene" Hypothesis conjectures that, even in the animal kingdom, individuals will sometimes adopt a behaviour which is not in the interests of their own, personal, survival but, if examined in depth, achieves something which assures survival of other individuals, with which it shares a genetic heritage.

It's a fascinating theory but requires you to believe that a bio-molecule (DNA) is capable of influencing behaviour (brain chemistry) but without having any sentience of its own. The mechanisms (chemical messengers) may one day be elucidated but, until then, it is still a stretch of the imagination.

Selfless/Selfish behaviour in a sentient being is far more understandable. Take your pick ;-)

Mark

If you google for information you should find what you need :)

Have a look here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml

Thanks, Janet. Would surames have been in place when the BD was raging?

According to Wikipaedia the mortality rate was btween 30 and 75%. As for surnames I think they mainly came in later when populated areas needed to identify people with the same name.Essentially if a village had oneman named John it wouldn't be a problem but once there were two or more. They started with descriptive forms i.e. John Redhead, John Smith, John Robertson and John Broughton. (named after characteristics, occupations, fathers name and place name)

Thanks. Interesting you read about fewer surnames than before BD. As so many thousands died (just been reading up a bit) guess this stands to reason.

Say there was an 'Astercote' family living in Essex for many generations, it was a very common name in those parts, etc etc, if the BD came to that part of Essex there would be no more Astercotes, etc.

Mind you were surnames firmly in place by then? I am a bit uncertain as to when they became commonly used but think from around 1500s?

Thanks for reply.

Would it be the case that no one has an ancestor who survived the Black Death as this was almost unheard of?

This must mean that certain surnames and family lines were entirely wiped out with some areas being hit worse than others?

Not explaining myself very well here but hopefully you'll get the jist of what I'm asking. Thanks.