Infant Death Statistics

It's been eye-opening going through cemetery records and finding out how many infants/children never made it to adulthood.

In some rural cemeteries, infants comprise up to 90% of the burials. An average of urban and rural cemeteries, from my data collection the past two years, is in the 40% to 50% range. And if you look at unmarked graves, infants are the large majority.

Most people ignore the infant siblings/children of their ancestors. BUT...they can often place a couple/family in a location between census years, which helps identify their migrations across the US. So many infants are buried in cemeteries that their parents are not buried in.

I'm thankful for the medical care and vaccinations available today!

The #1 Oklahoma Genealogy Periodical

In my opinion, from the perspective of the purpose of this blog, my pick for the #1 genealogy periodical for all of Oklahoma is The Tree Tracers. This periodical is published by the Southwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society (SWOGS) out of Lawton OK.

Each issue is packed full of plenty of information on deaths in SW Oklahoma. In the issues at the Stillwater Publc Library (volumes 19 through 27) are SO MANY records. These include obituaries from Cotton, Jefferson and Comanche Counties; cemetery transcriptions from Cotton, Jefferson, Stephens and Comanche counties; Bible records; queries, pedigree charts and family group sheets; Indian deaths; and many more records.

Don't forget to check out the local genealogical society newsletters. They often include records unique to that locality. If you have ancestors in SW Oklahoma, you are truly blessed to have such a great resource as The Tree Tracers available! It gets my vote for the best genealogy periodical in Oklahoma!

Civil War Deaths

I was looking through some old emails and found a set from 4 or so years ago. I had corresponded with a man who had a newspaper account of casualties from the Battle of Honey Springs/Elk Horn Tavern. The article listed Confederate casualties only. The majority were for men of the 20th and 29th Texas Cavalries.

It amazed that 63 deaths (if I counted correctly) in east central Indian Territory were reported in a Texas newspaper. And along with the deaths were included names of those injured mortally, severely, and slightly. The list was by Regiment and then by company within the regiment. Within the company, casualties were divided by rank.

This just goes to show that sometimes you have to look elsewhere for records from "here". I doubt that ANY Indian Territory newspaper listed deaths from the battle. And the list in this newspaper article is more complete than I have seen in the Official Records.

And even better, my correspondent in a separate email included in brackets the full name of the soldiers as listed in Broadstreet's Index of Confederate Soldiers from Texas. Nearly all names in the newspaper article are initials only. So to have the full names is especially pleasing.