Diabetes Genealogy

[Mark T]

I notice scanning through various threads that a few have traced their family history, and in some cases specifically looked at if there is an incidence of diabetes in their family or not.

I was wondering, how did you determine if there was or was not diabetes? Was it a case of requesting the death certificates in each case? Or would you look for a pattern, such as an early death?


As a background, myself and my wife have been researching our trees for a good part of 2 years , but not for the purposes of diabetes history. But generally we don't purchase the certificates (?9 a time! 😱)

 

[mcdonagh47]

I notice scanning through various threads that a few have traced their family history, and in some cases specifically looked at if there is an incidence of diabetes in their family or not.

I was wondering, how did you determine if there was or was not diabetes? Was it a case of requesting the death certificates in each case? Or would you look for a pattern, such as an early death?


As a background, myself and my wife have been researching our trees for a good part of 2 years , but not for the purposes of diabetes history. But generally we don't purchase the certificates (?9 a time! 😱)

I think you would need to buy the certificates Mark, even then diabetes might not be clearly stated as a primary or secondary cause of death. The terms used for "diabetes" might also be ambiguous or unrecognizable as such.



You might also try Parish Registers which sometimes mention a cause of death.

Medical records are also available for inspection after 50 (?) years as well.

 

[Cate]

I have traced my family tree, but not looked for diabetes as such. So it was a surprise to find on the death cert of my maternal GG Grandfather that diabetes was the primary cause of death, aged 44 - which I would think would have been type 1, given his age and that is was the cause of death. He was in the workhouse too, poor bloke.

Mind you, I did this when it was still ?7 for the certs, not done much recently...can't afford it!

 

[Jennywren]

I have never done this , but i think it would be very interesting , i know my dad , nana and great nana had diabetes and now my niece aslo has it so thats 5 generations , but i dont know if thereb was anyone before my great nana

 

[margie]

Depending on how far back you are going - if you are looking in Scotland - the governments pay for view site has the Scottish death records. I am not sure when they stop but all those before 1900 will be there. The pay for view cost which allows you to download the record is considerably cheaper than ordering the certificate.

I have been thinking of getting some English death certificates - one part of the family seemed to have a lot of childhood or early adult deaths - its the expense putting me off.

 

[Robster65]

I don't think any actual medical records would be available, certainly not after 1901, but the death certs are a mine of information. Often, the informant is the spouse or a son/daughter so you can glean information that you might not have had otherwise.

Bear in mind, they only go back to 1837 for UK.

FreeBMD is a good place to start looking. They have most of the indexes online, so you can get the certificate number, or at least a few likely ones, if you're not sure of some details.

I've gone back to the 1700s but not found any diabetes related stuff. Not sure who to blame for my gene collection.🙄

Rob

 

[Mark T]

Yes, it's the cost of the death certs that tend to put me off.

We have Ancestry and FindmyPast subscription and the tree we have put together for my fathers side is well over 200 people. We are pretty much in the the late 1700's.

The thing that twigged my attention was that myself, my father, my uncle and my grandfather have/had diabetes (and all three of us that we know about got diagnosed at 35/36). It hints at some kind of gene issue.

My great grandfather was blind at death, but he died at the age of 80. I've always assumed that before the treatments were improved that the mortality would be earlier. However, his wife (my great-grandmother) died at age 60. And whereas my fathers line seem fairly long lived (70's/80's/90's in the 1800's), my great-grandmothers line seems to be 50's/60's.

I suspect the only way I'll find out is to spend money on some certificates and hope that there is some useful information.

 

[Robster65]

It could be that the women worked hard and didn't get much chance to recover from illnesses, etc.

Fascinating stuff Mark.

Let's hope you have the male line genes for longevity.

Rob

 

[Ellie Jones]

You don't always have to buy a copy of the death certificates, as you can do your own research in the archives and then you just need pen and notepad to write your details down.. All government offices that have the index's are can be found here
www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/gr...vernment/documents/digitalasset/dg_184626.pdf you need to phone first though, to check if appointment is required or any other payment etc...

Often it is the second cause of death that indicates whether diabetes was present, but it can get harder to decypher the further you go back..

We've managed to go as far back at 1011 on my mum's side, then her family goes over to France (were we are very lost) and back into the 1400's with my dads, but more research is required to unraval some of the leads here... Even on my mums side there is still areas that are worthy of further research...

It was my BIL who did the researching, and wrote his finding up into two books for us, as he found information to where people lived, got married etc, finding photo's and taking photo's and some local information etc...

I'm actually desentant of Peerage and Rebels Judge Jefferies hung a couple of them!

But surprises to our ancestory came within one generation, My grandfather was Australian which we knew, but even my dad was unaware that granddad had a twin brother who died when they were 10! Even though he had said twins were common in the family my great-great grand parents having 7 sets! and I make up one part of the two surviving sets twins in my family! And almost carried on family tradition but lost my identical twins at just over 5 months..

After this ramble, no mention or even indicators that any of my ancestors had diabetes have been found! I'm the only one so far, and our tree has been extended further with a great-great niece being added in January of this year!

 

[Robster65]

Hi Ellie.

You can't actually look at the certs at the offices, without ordering them from Kew. The indexes only tell you the name, place of registration and the quarter they were entered in, plus the cert number.🙂

I did a fair bit of mine in the Family History Centre in London, which is now closed and moved to Kew, but you can view parish registers on microfilm once you know where and when to look for. They can be informative.🙂

You've done well to get back that far. I presume that's due to the peerage lines who were about the only ones to keep records ?

Rob

 

[macast]

I've been researching my family history for nearly 25 years now and never come across a death certificate that said anything about diabetes. but it seems that my father's side were the ones who had it.... although the ones that did, died of heart attacks, with no mention of the D. I can take them back to 1775 but it looks like they landed in an alien spaceship😱 as, although I have tried for 15 or more years, I can't find where the first one was born 😱

 

[Sugarbum]

I was at The National Archives at Kew only last week! I absolutely love it there (Im such a saddo, always there till throwing out time ) whaat a loser 😉)

If you have not made a trip there they do induction talks which are deifnately worth going for (although microfilm still remains a mystery to me....!)

You would be suprised how much you can view for free at the National Archives and original documents that you can view by order in another room. The cost once you are there doesnt seem much at all. Even just looking at their online archives and other affiliated services such as ancestry.co.uk have endless credits added so that you can download for free. If you were doing this at home it costs in credits. Since knowing all this I have cancelled my home subsciption (but then I dont live too far from Kew so it makes sense).

One thing I noticed there is that they now have a lot of hospital records. I have only just started to touch on this as I was looking at the records of my uncles births in Lewisham hospital trying to find any mention of my grandfather (my uncles have all passed and my grandad died when my dad was 4 so Im starting from the very begining!). The hospital records may be something worth looking in to.

I have also been to the research room at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth which is great. They are also really helpful by email- they dont reply particually quickly but when they do they really are helpful. I am suggesting them because if you are tracing back far enough then likely enough there will be military medical records.

I would definately be interested in looking back to see if there was an incidence of family history of diabetes, as my father is also Type1. However, I would be very interested to know how others have got on with this as I would imagine it particually hard to trace beyond perhaps 3 or 4 generations as so little was known of then. Also the late discovery of insulin. Interested to hear what you find out! 🙂

 

[lucy123]

I have always wanted to start looking at my family tree, but have only got as far as writing down my mum and dads brothers and sisters (dads was difficult as adopted but have no idea where to start to go any further. All grandparents are deceased and only my mum survives - but her memory is not good! Any pointers would be appreciated.🙂

 

[Cate]

I have always wanted to start looking at my family tree, but have only got as far as writing down my mum and dads brothers and sisters (dads was difficult as adopted but have no idea where to start to go any further. All grandparents are deceased and only my mum survives - but her memory is not good! Any pointers would be appreciated.🙂

Firstly, look for your parents marriage certificate - order a copy (?9 ish) online, here: http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/ When you get it, this will give you:
Names, DOBs, location and occupations at marriage of your parents.
Names and occupations of their fathers, and whether they were alive at the time of marriage.

From the info on your grandfathers from the marriage cert, search for their marriages - this will jump you back another generation.

If you have a common surname, look for your parent's or grandfather's birth certificate before the marriage cert, as this will tie down their parent's full names, including the mother's maiden name. This helps confirm which marriage certificate you're looking for, as the index normally lists eg "J Smith spouse Jones, Q4 1923" or similar.

You can search the indexes for free at freebmd.org.uk, this gives you the reference number you need to put into the online order form. I think you can search on Ancestry for free as well, their index is sometimes better for some reason - not sure why as I think it's based on the same database!

Birth and marriage certificates will take you back to 1837, when registration became compulsory. A marriage in the early years of registration gives you a rough birth year for eg late 1700s, but then you're into parish records which are patchy to say the least.

The rootschat forum is fantastic and well worth having a look at, you can find it here:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php

Most importantly, whatever research you do, RECORD IT! I can't stress that enough. Make notes of what you find, what you need to research next, what websites you found info on, or what certificate it's from. Use a genealogy programme (I use Family Historian, written for UK data, most others are US based but there are others - Brother's Keeper is shareware so you only pay if you want to/like it, it's available here http://www.bkwin.org/). If you use software, just make sure it can output GEDCOM files, that's the generic genealogy standard so you can move your data around eg upload it to Genes Reunited/Ancestry etc if you choose to.

Hope I've not overwhelmed you with info, shout if I have. It's a real interest of mine, can you tell? 🙄

 

[lucy123]

Thanks Cate - thats really helpful. What a shame though that it is so expensive!

 

[Northerner]

That's terrific Cate, thank you for posting that 🙂

 

[Cate]

Thanks Cate - thats really helpful. What a shame though that it is so expensive!

It does mount up! It's addictive, like being a detective working out who comes where in your family, and whether there are any skeletons in the closet

I forgot to mention, once you get back to 1911 then you can access the census returns, so tracking back becomes a bit easier. Libraries normally have Ancestry subscriptions if you check their Local Studies section, so you don't necessarily need a personal subscription (though most of us end up with one in the end!). Also if you hit a brick wall then posting on Rootschat in the relevant forum generally gets you some really good suggestions for further research, or even people looking through eg the census for your missing person and throwing up suggestions for you to look at.

Good luck 🙂

 

[grahams mum]

i know for sure that from my parents side nobody had diabetes they died of cancer and my mum side old age everybody was over 100 years old my partner side lots of cancer and heart problem and there is only 2 people with type 2 so really thereis not any real link with graham diabetes i really think that the croups attacks that he had were to strong for his pancreas

 

[Mark T]

Tracing family history back can be a bit of a struggle, especially if parts of the family have fallen out with each other and won't talk. But it is a lot of fun!

Census returns are very useful, however, there are the occasional typo or mistake to confuse you A few of my ancestors were illiterate and didn't have the same surname on any two census. It was obvious it was the same set of people though.

I've always assumed that I would see (relatively) early deaths for diabetes in the family. Although it would be difficult to figure if those early deaths where accidental or other environmental issues.

 

[Sugarbum]

Cate, thats impressive! I know what you mean by addictive! I shall be trying the sites you have recomended too, thanks.

Im (sadly) looking forward to completing the 2011 cencus 🙂 and making myself traceable! I havent received my internet login as yet. Should be through the door by the 18th March.

My next stop is I need to book a visit at the documents room in The Artillery Museum in Woolwich. My gramps was in the Royal Field Artillery 19th Battery in WW1 and they apparently hold the war diaries of each battery and some memorabilia. Fingers crossed.