Have you recorded your family medical history? If so, did you use some type of form?

Question

Is it necessary to go back farther than Great-Grandparents? I need to put this together. Where do I start? Thank you.

Answer 1

I don't think you need a form either, but I am sure they are out there.  If you want COMPREHENSIVE, you work with your direct line back.  If (in the process) you become familiar with aunts/uncles, cousins, that could also be of value.  For example.. gr grandpa or gr grandma might never have been diagnosed with, say, diabetes.  If you find 50 cases of it, in their children/ grandchildren.. obviously, it does exist.

Illnesses that we have or know, today, MIGHT have been present in the past, but not AS WE NOW KNOW THEM.  You will find surprising things.  You simply also need to know that medical issues will not always come up immediately, but the more comfortable and trusting you create, you may be told things that cousins never thought to tell you, or might have kept private.

Answer 2

Knowing family medical history can be valuable.  However, as you get further back, you will not be able to get too much information.  You have to understand a lot of diagnoses in the past were really symptoms of something else.  They did not have the diagnostic tools they have today.

When my maternal grandmother died in 1935, her death certificate just showed ileocolits which is an inflammation of the ileum and the colon but what we don't know is what caused it.    I have found on a great great grandmother in another family line, colitis and senility.  Still that doesn't say too much. There had to be a cause for the colitis.  

However, I detected 30 years ago from doing family history that there was a tendency toward respiratory disorders in my paternal grandmother's family going back to her mother.   Both had children by 2 marriages and children with emphysema by both.  Actually, I had a great granddaughter of one of my grandmother's sisters contact me a few months back and both her grandmother and her mother died of emphysema.  Her grandmother quit smoking when she was young and her mother never smoked.  So there is a red flag of warning in our family, DON'T SMOKE.  It can just aggravate an already hereditary problem.  I passed the warning on to a son of one of my first cousins who smoked.  He told his mother and she had pulmonary tests done and found she had very definite decreased function and she stopped smoking.

I have never smoked but have been exposed to second hand smoke in the workplace in times past.  I have some respiratory obstruction and have had an inhaler prescribed to use as needed.   I recently had a cousin to die who had COPD  and she didn't smoke.  Her mother did and died in her 30s of emphysema.  My older sister also suffered with bronchietasis and she never smoked.   My father is the only one of my grandmother's eight children that never smoked and his life span was the longest.  He died at 86.

Answer 3

I havn't thought of it but maybe i should. I dont think you would need a form for it. Just keep some copies of the records in a folder. Good luck