James Mi(t)chell of Boscarne

[tonymitch]

Ages ago, I had a wee bit of a problem with Lavinia Mitchell who was buried 18th May 1852 aged 42 and had lived in Boscarne. I could find no record of her on any census.

This was complicated by another Lavinia, also of Boscarne who died in 1853 aged 56.

However, due to the discovery by another member of the Mitchell clan that I existed, we started exchanging info notably about Ellen Jane Mitchell. Ellen died aged 9mths and was buried on 22 May 1852 from St Just.

In the OPC record for St Buryan, Ellen Jane and Lavinia were baptised on the same day.

I then noticed that there was a Lavinia Mitchell aged 1 in the 1851 census living with her parents at Kelynack........Lavinia's parents had lived at Boscarne!

How's about the age of the 42 year old Lavinia being incorrect. If 'twere 2 instead of 42, that would explain it. The Lavinia who died aged 56 was grandmother Lavinia who lived at Boscarne. Samuel, Lavinia and Ellen's father moved to Kelynack between the 1841 and 1851 census. How's little Lavinia staying with her grandparents at Boscarne due to Ellen Jane being seriously ill with an infectious disease?

Contact with Bill and Corrine the OPC for St Buryan proved fruitful....the register for Lavinia MAY POSSIBLY show a 1 crossed out and a 2 substituted thus making her age appear 42.


But...two daughters buried within four days of each other....doesn't bear thinking about.

Does anyone know if there was an epidemic sweeping Cornwall during the early part of 1852?

[Cornish Terrier]

Tony - I seem to recall mentioning that very possibility about the age being incorrect in one of the very early discussions about Lavinia.

But I would not go chasing epidemics. It is not unusual to find multiple children (and sometimes parents) of one family being buried within days or weeks of each other.
In at least one register there is a period where almost everyone who was buried was recorded as having died of Cholera.

But there were other diseases such as Scarlet Fever. Although contagious many of these were diagnosed early and the family isolated so the spread of contagion was contained.
It would not be unusual therefore to have two or more chidren of a family succumb within a short space of time.

CT

[tonymitch]

Agreed....but I 'aint chasin'. I admit it is not uncommon for multiple deaths in families, and the possibility of contagious or infectious diseases being present in a family is also highly likely. This was especially true up until Pasteur, Snow and Co at the beginning of the 19th C.....However......I understand that there was a cholera pandemic in Europe during the early part of the 19th C and I wondered, just wondered, if there was any indication that it was prevalent in Cornwall.

[londoner]

Paul Church has part of it's burial ground called the Cholera field, so yes it definitely came here.
I believe 1848/9 saw the height of the epidemic.
and then 1849-1850 a Small Pox epidemic.

good info here:http://www.cornish-mining.org.uk/story/living.htm

[marychown]

There appears to have been a long lasting cholera epidemic at Paul . Several of my ancestors were interred there in the Cholera Field over a period of some 30 years or more - e.g. in one family alone Joseph Johns was interred on 21 Jan 1842 and his wife Elizabeth James Johns nee Rouffignac on 22 February 1871. Their son Joseph Johns was buried there on 8 Jan 1849. Elizabeth's father Francis Rouffignac was also buried there in September 1832 as well as her brother Ambrose Kerrill Rouffignac on 7 Sept 1853 and his wife Jane on 26 March 1879.

Mary