Does ayone else find this emotionally draining?

[johnnyonthespot]

So, I've been spending a little less time answering questions here and a lot more time on my own research this past week. As the title implies, this can be really draining sometimes:

Married couple have five children, three of whom die within a year of birth.

Another couple have six children, two of whom die before age 5.

Another couple have four children - one of whom dies at age 1, another at age 6.

A woman loses both a two year-old child and her husband within six weeks of each other.

And so on.

[JohnArmellino]

I agree, Carmine. It can be emotionally draining to read about the heartbreak that some of these families went through. My worst case: Fiorenza Colucci and Francesco Miranda lost their first son at 2 months old. They then endured 11 consecutive still-born births over the next 17 years. They never did have a child who lived. Imagine their hopes each time Fiorenza became pregnant and their despair each time the child was stillborn. And then multiply it by a lifetime.

[donnawright]

Absolutely. draining I learned about abandonment of the Italian family when the father came to America and deaths of 4 babies out of 7 kids like you experienced. My grandmother's dad died when she was just 2. When I learned that my GM was therefore an only child (that I know of unless mom remarried), I have a visual image of my GM and two of her kids coming to America, the daughter coming by herself at 16 six years later, and the GGM watching her only child and all grandkids leave her forever.

It is a good sign to me that you find these things emotionally draining because you are immersed and able to put yourself there. It's all unimaginable to me. What is more clear all the time is the necessity for our kids and grands to understand what the folks did to be here ... whether they were good people or had faults like the rest of us. Our kids and grands are not all that far removed generationally from them. Sometimes I sit here and weep at the thought of all 4 of the grands and their decision to leave home. My dad said he worked all his life; I see it now. He was the oldest and left to farm the land at the age of 6. I want my mother to talk about making sausage with her mother. I need to know more; I want them back.

Donna

[Squigy]

Yes, at times it can be. An uncle of mine lost his wife, and two brothers all in the same week, and all from different causes. My g-g-grandmother lost 3 children, one the day it was born, the other when it was 6 months old, and the last one when he was 11, who died of heart problems.

There are so many more of these stories, but when you're dealing with the entire lifetime of person after person, you will find a lot of sadness.

[Squigy]

Also, I thought I would add one particularly depressing article I read in an old newspaper about another uncle of mine who was killed in a mining accident. His eyes were blown out, and all of his limbs were blown off .

[donnawright]

I clicked the link Squiggy. I grew up very near Ellwood City and three of my siblings and their kids are still there. Small world

[Squigy]

I clicked the link Squiggy. I grew up very near Ellwood City and three of my siblings and their kids are still there. Small world

Oh, I was wondering what link you were talking about for a second

It is a small world! I spent a good deal of my life in Ellwood City, actually, and still visit often. Where were you from?

P.S.

I'm moving to TX soon, too

[johnnyonthespot]

Also, I thought I would add one particularly depressing article I read in an old newspaper about another uncle of mine who was killed in a mining accident. His eyes were blown out, and all of his limbs were blown off .

Aack! 8O

Another thing I have come across before and just now again is this:

Daughter Rosa Domenica born February 3, 1826; dies one moth later on March 2, 1826.

Trying again, daughter Rosa Rachele is born July 4, 1927 and dies just two days later on July 6.

It is as though the name itself had a curse upon it.

[Squigy]

Also, I thought I would add one particularly depressing article I read in an old newspaper about another uncle of mine who was killed in a mining accident. His eyes were blown out, and all of his limbs were blown off .

Aack! 8O

Another thing I have come across before and just now again is this:

Daughter Rosa Domenica born February 3, 1826; dies one moth later on March 2, 1826.

Trying again, daughter Rosa Rachele is born July 4, 1927 and dies just two days later on July 6.

It is as though the name itself had a curse upon it.

A lot of babies didn't survive infancy in those days. Sad, but it's the way things were.

[DeFilippis78]

Hey carmine. You have to remember , people were killed by things that would never kill someone today. A fever, something we take for granted and pop a few tylenol over, was a huge killer. More people died of fever then you would believe. So if a little child caught the sniffles because he didnt wear his hat ,can be dead in a weeks time from fever.And up until the 1940s , child birth was the number 1 killer in women. The worst Ive heard in my family is an Austrian grandmother had 13 children and 10 died! Thats right...10 died and then her husband! But probably in every branch of my family there is death of children. Its the nature of the times. No tylenol, no immunizations, no antibiotcs...

[JohnArmellino]

Once I found a set of death records circa 1652 in which so many people died that they were set up like census records -- father, wife, and x number of children, all deceased. Apparently, during that period a terrible plague exterminated the population in parts of Molise. I found three sets of the Starruccio family that apparently had been wiped out. My 9GGM was Olimpia Starruccio, born circa 1600, but I could never find anyone with that name while researching the civil records and church extracts. I guess they were all wiped out in the mid-1600s. It was terrible reading over and over about entire families being wiped out. There were over 1300 of these records in a town that generally had about 100 individual deaths per year at that time.

[Tessa78]

Apparently, during that period a terrible plague exterminated the population in parts of Molise.

From this site:
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-mo ... and-sicily

The early modern kingdom of Naples, whose twelve provinces compromised the southern third of the Italian peninsula, was the military and fiscal cornerstone of Spain's Mediterranean empire from its conquest in December 1503. It provided significant resources of men and money in a subordinate political role as a viceroyalty in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish imperial system. After the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the kingdom passed to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1713. During the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), a cadet branch of the Bourbons made Naples the capital of a new, independent Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1734. The capital vied with Paris as western Europe's largest city until the plague of 1656 halved its population with 150,000 deaths; yet Naples still remained western Europe's third largest city into the nineteenth century.

Unbelievable number of deaths!

T.

[JohnArmellino]

The capital vied with Paris as western Europe's largest city until the plague of 1656 halved its population with 150,000 deaths; yet Naples still remained western Europe's third largest city into the nineteenth century.

Tessa - The records I viewed might well have been from 1656. Campobasso is only 75 miles from Napoli. Sad to say, I lost my research notebook during the trip from Campobasso to Roma and I have to rely upon my 60-year-old memory. Thank goodness I didn't lose my laptop!

[Tessa78]

Hi John!

Thank goodness I didn't lose my laptop!

Perish the thought! 8O

T.

[aliza24]

I hope this doesn't sound cold-hearted, but no, I don't find it draining. Of course some of the stories are incredibly sad but that's the way things were back then- it's kind of expected. If that kind of thing were rare and it caught me by surprise I might have a different reaction.

Also, I do this stuff because I want to know their whole story- the good and the bad.

If anything, finding those kinds of records helps me to understand why they may have come over looking for a better life. When I was younger I always used to wonder why they would leave Italy to come here. I personally would much rather grown up in Italy. But that's now, not in the 19th century... I wasn't putting myself in their shoes.