Category: Sherry Lyn Carsten

Recently a friend asked me to “teach” her how to find her ancestors… my advice was to “start with yourself, your parents, your grandparents, their siblings, their cousins… then you can dig deeper.” With that advice I realized that I have some major gaps in my more recent genealogy…… Read more on Sherry Carsten’s blog: Genealogy Gaps….

This was posted on a email listing I belong to. I thought it was really interesting and really helpful when looking at death certificates, so I thought I would share it with you all. I don’t know who created it or who to give credit for it to, so if anyone knows let me know.
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Ablepsy – Blindness
Ague – Malarial fever
American plague – Yellow fever
Anasarca – Generalized massive edema
Aphonia – Laryngitis
Aphtha – Infant disease “thrush”
Apoplexy – Paralysis due to stroke
Asphicsia – Cyanotic and lack of oxygen
Asphycsia – Cyanotic and lack of oxygen
Atrophy – Wasting away or diminishing in size
Bad blood – Syphilis
Bilious fever – Typhoid, malaria, hepatitis or elevated temperature and bile emesis
Biliousness – Jaundice associated with liver disease
Black plague – Bubonic plague
Black fever – Acute infection with high temperature and dark red skin lesions and high mortality rate
Black pox – Black small pox
Black vomit – Vomiting old black blood due to ulcers or yellow fever
Blackwater fever – Dark urine associated with high temperature
Bladder in throat – Diphtheria (seen on death certificates)
Blood poisoning – Bacterial infection; septicemia
Bloody flux – Bloody stools
Bloody sweat – Sweating sickness
Bone shave – Sciatica
Brain fever – Meningitis
Breakbone – Dengue fever
Bright’s disease – Chronic disease of kidneys
Bronze John – Yellow fever
Bule – Boil, tumor or swelling
Cachexy – Malnutrition
Cacogastric – Upset stomach
Cacospysy – Irregular pulse
Caduceus – Subject to falling sickness or epilepsy
Camp fever – Typhus; aka camp diarrhea
Canine madness – Rabies; hydrophobia
Canker – Ulceration of mouth or lips; or herpes simplex
Catalepsy – Seizures/trances
Catarrhal – Nose and throat discharge from cold or allergy
Cerebritis – Inflammation of cerebrum; or lead poisoning
Chilblain – Swelling of extremities caused by exposure to cold
Child bed fever – Infection following birth of a child
Chin cough – Whooping cough
Chlorosis – Iron deficiency anemia
Cholera – Acute, severe, contagious diarrhea with intestinal lining sloughing
Cholera morbus – Characterized by nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, elevated temperature, etc.; could also be appendicitis
Cholecystitus – Inflammation of the gall bladder
Cholelithiasis – Gall stones
Chorea – Disease characterized by convulsions, contortions and dancing
Cold plague – Ague which is characterized by chills
Colic – Abdominal pain and cramping
Congestive chills – Malaria
Consumption – Tuberculosis
Congestion – Any collection of fluid in an organ, like the lungs
Congestive chills – Malaria with diarrhea
Congestive fever – Malaria
Corruption – Infection
Coryza – A cold
Costiveness – Constipation
Cramp colic – Appendicitis
Crop sickness – Overextended stomach
Croup – Laryngitis, diphtheria or strep throat
Cyanosis – Dark skin color from lack of oxygen in blood
Cynanche – Diseases of throat
Cystitis – Inflammation of the bladder
Day fever – Fever lasting one day; sweating sickness
Debility – Lack of movement or staying in bed
Decrepitude – Feebleness due to old age
Delirium tremens – Hallucinations due to alcoholism
Dengue – Infectious fever endemic to East Africa
Dentition – Cutting of teeth
Deplumation – Tumor of the eyelids which causes hair loss
Diary fever – A fever that lasts more than one day
Diptheria – Contagious disease of the throat
Distemper – Usually animal disease with malaise, discharge from nose and throat and anorexia
Dock fever – Yellow fever
Dropsy – Edema (swelling), often caused by kidney or heart disease
Dropsy of the brain – Encephalitis
Dry bellyache – Lead poisoning
Dyscrasy – An abnormal body condition
Dysentery – Inflammation of the colon with frequent passage of mucous and blood
Dysorexy – Reduced appetite
Dyspepsia – Indigestion and heartburn; heart attack symptoms
Dysury – Difficulty in urination
Eclampsy – Symptoms fo epilepsy; convulsions during labor
Ecstasy – A form of catalepsy characterized by loss of reason
Edema – Nephrosis; swelling of tissues
Edema of lungs – Congestive heart failure; a form of dropsy
Eel thing – Erysipelas
Elephantiasis – A form of leprosy
Encephalitis – Swelling of the brain; aka sleeping sickness
Enteric fever – Typhoid fever
Enteritis – Inflammation of the bowels
Enterocolitis – Inflammation of the intestines
Epitaxis – Nose bleed
Erysipelas – Contagious skin disease due to Streptococci with vesiculas and bulbous lesions
Extravasted blood – Rupture of a blood vessel
Falling sickness – Epilepsy
Fatty liver – Cirrhosis of liver
Fits – Sudden attack or seizure of muscle activity
Flux – An excessive flow or discharge of fluid like hemorrhage or diarrhea
Flux of humour – Circulation
French pox – Syphilis
Gathering – A collection of pus
Glandular fever – Mononucleosis
Great pox – Syphilis
Green fever – Anemia
Grippe/grip – Influenza-like symptoms
Grocer’s itch – Skin disease cause by mites in sugar or flour
Heart sickness – Condition caused by loss of salt from body
Heat stroke – Body temperature elevates because of surrounding environment temperature and body does not perspire to reduce temperature
Hectical complaint – Recurrent fever
Hematemesis – Vomiting blood
Hematuria – Bloody urine
Hemiplegy – Paralysis of one side of the body
Hip gout – Osteomylitis
Horrors – Delirium tremers
Hydrocephalus – – Enlarged head; water on the brain
Hydropericardium – Heart dropsy
Hydrophobia – Rabies
Hydrothroax – Dropsy in chest
Hypertrophic – Enlargement of an organ, like the heart
Impetigo – Contagious skin disease characterized by pustules
Inanition – Physical condition resulting from lack of food
Infantile paralysis – Polio
Intestinal colic – Abdominal pain due to improper diet
Jail fever – Typhus
Jaundice – Condition cause by blockage of intestines
King’s evil – Tuberculosis of neck and lymph glands
Kruchhusten – Whooping cough
Lagrippe – Influenza
Lockjaw – Tetanus or infectious disease affecting the muscles of the neck and jaw; untreated, it is fatal in eight (8) days
Long sickness – Tuberculosis
Lues disease – Syphilis
Lues venera – Venereal disease
Lumbago – Back pain
Lung fever – Pneumonia
Lung sickness – Tuberculosis
Lying in – Time of delivery of an infant
Malignant sore throat – Diphtheria
Mania – Insanity
Marasmus – Progressive wasting away of the body, like malnutrition
Membranous croup – Diphtheria
Meningitis – Inflations of brain or spinal cord
Metritis – Inflammation of uterus or purulent vaginal discharge
Miasma – Poisonous vapors thought to infect the air
Milk fever – Disease from drinking contaminated milk, like undulant fever or brucellosis
Milk leg – Post partum thrombophlebitis
Milk sickness – Disease from milk of cattle which had eaten poisonous weeds
Mormal – Gangrene
Morphew – Scurvy blisters on the body
Mortification – Gangrene of necrotic tissue
Myelitis – Inflammation of the spine
Myocarditis – Inflammation of heart muscles
Necrosis – Mortification of bones or tissue
Nephrosis – Kidney degeneration
Nephritis – Inflammation of kidneys
Nervous prostration – Extreme exhaustion from inability to control physical and mental activities
Neuralgia – Described as discomfort, such as “headache” was neuralgia in head
Nostalgia – Homesickness
Palsy – Paralysis or uncontrolled movement of controlled muscles
Paroxysm – Convulsion
Pemphigus – Skin disease of watery blisters
Pericarditis – Inflammation of the heart
Peripneumonia – Inflammation of the lungs
Peritonitis – Inflammation of the abdominal area
Petechial fever – Fever characterized by skin spotting
Phthiriasis – Chronic wasting away or a name for tuberculosis
Plague – An acute febrile highly infectious disease with a high fatality rate
Pleurisy – Any pain in the chest area with each breath
Podagra – Gout
Poliomyelitis – Polio; Potter’s asthma
Pott’s disease – Tuberculosis of the spine
Puerperal exhaustion – Death due to childbirth
Puerperal fever – Elevated temperature after giving birth to an infant
Puking fever – Milk sickness
Putrid fever – Diphtheria
Quinsy – Tonsillitis
Remitting fever – Malaria
Rheumatism – Any disorder associated with pain in joints
Rickets – Disease of skeletal system
Rose cold – Hay fever or nasal symptoms of an allergy
Rotanny fever – (Child’s disease) ???
Rubeola – German measles
Sanguineous crust – Scab
Scarlatina – Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever – A disease characterized by a red rash
Scarlet rash – Roseola
Sciatica – Rheumatism in the hips
Scirrhus – Cancerous tumors
Scotomy – Dizziness, nausea and dimness of sight
Scrivener’s palsy – Writer’s cramp
Screws – Rheumatism
Scrofula – Tuberculosis of neck lymph glands; progresses slowly with abscesses and pistulas develop; young person’s disease
Scrumpox – Skin disease; impetigo
Scurvy – Lack of Vitamin C; symptoms of weakness, spongy gums and hemorrhages under the skin
Septicemia – Blood poisoning
Shakes – Delirium tremens
Shaking – Chills; ague
Ship fever – Typhus
Siriasis – Inflammation of the brain due to sun exposure
Sloes – Milk sickness
Small pox – Contagious disease with fever and blisters
Softing of brain – Result of stroke or hemmorhage in the brain, with an end result of the tissue softening in that area
Sore throat – distemper Diphtheria or quinsy
Spanish influenza – Epidemic influenza
Spasms – Sudden involuntary contraction of a muscle or group of muscles, like a convulsion
Spina bifida – Deformity of spine
Spotted fever – Either typhus or meningitis
Sprue – Tropical disease characterized by intestinal disorders and sore throat
St. Anthony’s fire – Also erysipelas, but named so because of affected skin areas being bright red in appearance
St. Vitas dance – Ceaseless occurance of rapid complex jerking movements performed involuntarily
Stomatitis – Inflammation of the mouth
Stranger’s fever – Yellow fever
Strangery – Rupture
Sudor anglicus – Sweating sickness
Summer complaint – Diarrhea, usually in infants, caused by spoiled milk
Sunstroke – Uncontrolled elevation of body temperature due to environment heat; lack of sodium in the body is a predisposing cause
Swamp sickness – – Could be malaria, typhoid or encephalitis
Sweating sickness – – Infectious and fatal disease common to the UK in the 15th century
Tetanus – Infectious disease characterized by high fever, headache and dizziness
Thrombosis – Blood clot inside blood vessel
Thrush – Childhood disease characterized by spots on mouth, lips and throat
Tick fever – Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Toxemia of pregnancy – Eclampsia
Trench mouth – Painful ulcers found along gum line; caused by poor nutrition and poor hygiene
Tussis convulsiva – Whooping cough
Typhus – Infectious fever characterized by high fever, headache and dizziness
Variola – Smallpox
Venesection – Bleeding
Viper’s dance – St. Vitus dance
Yellowjacket – Yellow fever

Hello family… I’ve been really busy getting things around for a yard sale, kids going back to school soon and dealing with Migraines.  Not much going on other than that… hoping that once the kids get back to school I can do some serious researching.  Happy Summer!

Much Love from Michigan, Sherry

This is from my personal blog Echo’s of Lost Footsteps wanted to share here 🙂

In my search for William Wilson’s Revolutionary War records, I was beginning to think that he wasn’t in the war or that he wasn’t a white man as people claim him to be, as I couldn’t find anything at all connecting him & the Revolutionary War.  Then right in front of my face, right here on Ever Widening Circle blog on the right hand side in a list of Links for the Chagum/Lighthouse Tribe is a gleem of hope!

The link is the the Barkhamsted Soldiers Memorial, it is a list of soldiers that fought in different wars. Right there 3rd from the last name is William Wilson!! I have hope that he served! Now my search is renewed! I am determined to find William Wilson in records of the Revolutionary War!

Like I said in a previous post on my blog, I have found 6 ancestors that served in the Revolutionary War, and I have submitted a request to get an application to the DAR, (Daughter’s of American Revolution), so I am hoping that once I become a member that I will have access to more of their records & I will be able to find him!!

Much Love from Michigan, Sherry

I find more & more of the desendants of the Light House Tribe are into writing, most specificly poetry.  My mother wrote poem, as did some of her brothers & sisters, their mother Edith Webster-Lash wrote a ton of poems.  Here is a poem by

Poem for thought

As I sit here all alone I thank the Lord I have a home.

And now I think I’ve found a gal that will make a real good Pal.

I know that we are getting old so lets not let our love grow cold.

So I nope that we both keep our sight so we will both do things right.

I know it’s hard to leave ones home but it’s much better than being alone.

We might be in a field of clover, so sit rightdown and think it over.

(Page 1)

I know good things are hard to find so don’t think we should change our mind.

And when I go to bed at night I lay and wonder if you will write.

And so if goes the whole night through, I just lay there and think of you.

 I hope its plain for you to see so sit right down and write to me.

And tell me just how you feel so we can some day make a deal.

So I will sit and wish and try and so I’ll close and say by by.

With all my Love, Bert

(Page 2)

I just sit and ponder on how this poem was created, Bert was working on the railroad at this time and Elizabeth (known as Lizzie to her family) was living in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.  I wonder if they met while he was working on the line, or if they met through her half brother James.  However they met, you can tell that he was smitten with her.

They look so happy in their wedding photo… so sad that 15 short years later Lizzie died only 5 month after giving birth to the youngest of their four daughters of Acute Nephritis (Acute nephritis is a sudden inflammation of the kidney.).

Much Love from Michigan, Sherry

I was very interested in all the Revolutionary War paper’s Coni has been posting.  I went searching there to see if I could find William Wilson in any of those.  My search was for William Wilson in Connecticut.  I found a file with a document in it of Levi Hitchcock (does that surname sound familer to anyone else?) in Litchfield County, CT.  The document seems to be a testimony of William & Mary Wilson of Litchfield County, CT for Mary Hitchcock widow of Levi.  I am 99.9% sure that this is my William & Mary (aka Polly) Wilson, who would be Mary/Polly Chagum.

As I read further through the old documents, Levi Hitchcock he served in the battle of Montmouth & from Colbrook, CT. That is the same battle that Lewis S. Mills said in his book “The Legend of Barkhamsted Light House” (page 51), Colebrook is the place where William Wilson was a preacher.  Are these just a random coindences?  I think not!

Much love from Michigan, Sherry

Searching for your ancestors is like a big hunting expedition.  You dig & dig for the right information, only to find that the document or database that you thought would have the answers only had more questions.  I have come to that line… I am questioning everything we’ve ever known about William Preston Wilson Sr. who married Polly Chagum (daughter of James & Molly).  I found in an old document for Connecticut U.S. Pensioners, 1818-1872 a William Wilson, but all it says is “See previous book” – A LOT of help there, NOT!  I found a William Wilson in the Revolutionary War Pension Index on Ancestry.com – that doesn’t give me a lot either just his name, state, rank, stipend and a number. UGH!!! This is getting frustrating!! LOL!!

I went to the DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) website, and found only one William Wilson in their database, and his birth & death date & places don’t match and his wife was Sarah Rust.  Whew, I’m off to check out the NSSAR website to see what I can find.

I wonder if William Preston Wilson was even in the Revolutionary War.  I am wondering if he was a white man at all.  I can’t find anything of his life before the Lighthouse Tribe settlement.  No parents, nothing in Fairfield at all, except a William S. Wilson married a Phebe Wilson on 16 Feb 1838 in Stratfield, Fairfield, CT.  My gut is telling me that William Preston Wilson Sr, was not white but that he was an Indian who could pass as a white man…. but, my gut has been wrong before, not often, but it has.

Much Love from Michigan, Sherry