Plaques

[ray1955]

I was wondering how one would check on reasons so many may die;
Example: 1891, 1895, 1900 3 children died in less than 22 mos. in Vallelunga Sicily

wondering if it was genetic or was their a plaque during this time.

[VotM]

Three childrens deaths in 22 months isn't a strong signal of a plague, at least for a comune which appears to have had 120-270 deaths per year.

Stronger markers would be things like what happened in Cefalu in 1837, where a separate chronological section of nearly 700 index-only records exists for the period 7/9/1837-8/23/1837 (the rest of the year had 226 entries); or in Gioiosa Marea in 1918, where there were more deaths recorded in a three week span than recorded for the remainder of the year (WWI played a much lesser role in fatalities that year, at least in Sicily).

[ray1955]

yes when I first started I was told about looking at the deaths with regard to indexes......if say there are
200 deaths in a year and if that at least doubled it could be an indicator....thanks for the response.

Ray