Do you have ancestors that survived the Black Death?

Question

You probably don't have any direct evidence of those ancestors, but if you have autoimmune problems, your ancestors probably survived the Black Death.

See this research published yesterday.

https://www.science.org/content/article/gene-helped-people-survive-black-death-come-haunt

Comments

M., thank you for the interesting article. I was wondering who my cousins and I acquired the polymyalgia rheumatica from. 

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It is interesting; my mother had an autoimmune problem, first diagnosed when she was about 75,  however none of her children, myself and my siblings have autoimmune issues, but both my children have autoimmune problems, there are no known problems on their father's side of the family, however that family was not known for attention to their health.

Sometimes I wonder if there were more autoimmune problem in the past than were known, but they were not diagnosed because there were no methods to accurately make a diagnosis, the information just was not was not available.

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M., I am 77 and most of my ancestors did not live to the age I am, and I have only had this for five years. I feel blessed to have prednisone.

 I hope your children are doing well.

My daughter has epilepsy, and I have found a great grand aunt that also had epilepsy.

Answer 1

My family is struggling with multiple autoimmune issues and this article was very interesting to read. Thank you!!

Comments

Robynne my heart goes out to you and your family. My brother and sister both escaped inheriting our parents & grandparents autoimmune disorders but all three of us siblings were saddled with severe non-diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Like someone once said "If it's not one thing it's another..."  I did find the article fascinating...I sure hope the  Covid varients don't wreak havic on folks with a suseptable genetic makeup; one which can be adversely influenced in the long run like what apparently happened to the Plague victims who survived but experienced autoimmune disorders the remainder of their lives. (Assuming the archeological remains represented enough statistical samplings to meet all reasonable minimum threshold requirements for experimental testing in order to confidently draw conclusions from the test results.)

Answer 2

I suspect that if you have European ancestors they survived the Black death, or you would not be here!

Comments

Daniel, I suspect that you are correct!  

Though surprisingly there were areas of Europe and Britain that had almost no cases of 'the plague' during the 1348 outbreak, Milan is reported as having only one case.

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The plague killed about one third of the population of Europe. The other two thirds survived the epidemic, whether they actually caught the disease or not.

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As Daniel says, if you have European ancestry, they were survivors of the black death. I doubt even those of us who can trace significant ancestry to an area that avoided this outbreak, will have all ancestors from the same area. Moreover, the 14th C outbreak was far from the last.

It might even have increased the life chances for your ancesto.  Fewer serfs to till the fields gave the survivors more opportunities. In Western Europe, this  increased social mobility  Apparently, in Eastern Europe  it had the opposite effect with more stringent rules for serfs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death 

 (one of my 'hobby horses' is that I believe it was far more significant than the  much feted Magna Carta  ) 

  An extreme example was the English Paston family. The earliest documented member of the family from Norfolk was Clement Paston d 1419.  He was  probably the son of a serf. His son became a high court judge.  There's archaeological  evidence that Paston, his natal village may have had a very high population  loss  .https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303316768_Disaster_recovery_New_archaeological_evidence_for_the_long-term_impact_of_the_'calamitous'_fourteenth_century