Hello, Clay.

Very interesting story about the probability of smallpox in your family.  I
wonder if those men were neighbors ???  Also whether or not any landowner
neighbor also seems to have disappeared at the same period.  ???

My research those years ago revealed many more commitments than one would
suspect; notably for reasons akin to extreme age.  Doubtless so because
commitments, as said, were not uncommon since "old" age brought additional
attention and care often with no financial aid from outside the family unit.

Incidentally, for those with curiosity as to colonial medicine problems and
"cures" for those afflictions, though OOP and available only in libraries
and from rare book sources, take a look at Blanton, "Medicine In Virginia in
the Seventeenth Century" (William Byrd Press, Inc., Richmond, 1930), and see
Gordon, "Aesculapius Comes to the Colonies" (Ventnor Pub. N.J., 1948).

Paul

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