ancestor's question?

Question:

Family tree/ancestor's question?

Ive been doing research on a particular family that immigrated from Austria to my mothers home town in Wisconsin during the 1800's. The family had 4 children. Three were born in Austria, and the fourth was born in Wisconsin. The ones that were born in Austria died young, and the one that was born in Wisconsin lived to be 87 years old. Could the Austrian born children have contacted a terminal disease in Austria that made them live a short life?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Maybe, but almost everything that killed people in the 1800's, except TB, killed them within weeks. If TB wiped out the three, they would probably have coughed on the fourth and he would have gotten it.

There are a million possibilities. If Typhoid / Diptheria / Cholera wiped out the three, the fourth might
1) Have been nursing at the time, so didn't drink the bad water
2) Got sent to live with neighbors so he didn't catch it
3) Been really lucky

Did the three who died all die within a day, week, month, year or decade of each other? That would be a clue.