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Was
There a Doctor in the House?
Vital
Records: Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804–1929
(CD 507)
Reviewed by Marthe Arends
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I do love it when a new resource for genealogical information
comes to light! When I first clapped eyes on this CD, I wondered
just how much information would be included for a collection of
deceased doctors. I was pleasantly surprised by not only the amount
of information, but by the types of info included. This title
contains details for approximately 149,000 physicians (traditional
and homeopathic) which were gleaned from the two-volume Directory
of Deceased American Physicians, edited by Arthur W. Hafner.
I have never heard of these volumes, but the Family Archive's
introduction notes that "The Directory was produced from
a card file held by the American Medical Association." Now this
is interesting! The AMA kept track of what happened to its members!
What a great resource for researchers who have physicians in their
family tree.
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July
13, 2000
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Related Data on CD-ROM |
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The type of information included on the CD is mostly of a biographical
nature, although one very helpful field can go a long way in helping
you pinpoint residence. A few of the fields which are provided
for information (not every individual has info for all of the
fields) are:
- Individual's name
- date and cause of death
- place of death
- date and place of birth
- type of practice
- location and years of licenses
- location and years of practices (this is an extremely useful
bit of information, allowing researchers to search for land
and other local records)
- medical schools attended
Two examples of the sort of information found on the CD are provided
below. Notice that for each, a citation is given for the source
of the information, allowing you to look up the original publication
in which the details appeared.
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Name: Charles
Teuber
Death
date: Jun 9, 1921
Place
of death: Oxnard, CA
Birth
date: Aug 7, 1856
Place
of birth: New York, NY
Type
of practice: Allopath
States
and years of licenses:CA, 1888
Places
and dates of practices:Saticoy, CA, 1885, Oxnard, CA, Jan
27, 1911,
Oct 15, 1913, Pomona, CA, May 28, 1913, Moorpark, CA, May
21, 1920
Medical
school(s): New York University Medical College, New York:
Univ. of
City of New York Med. Dept., 1885, (G), NY-17 College of
Physicians and
Surgeons, Homeopathic, Buffalo, 1877, (G)
Other
education: Grammar, high schools, NY Coll. of Phar
Journal
of the American Medical Association Citation: 77:140
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Name: Annie
F. Norton Moore
Cause
of death: carcinoma, breast
Death
date: Oct 16, 1921
Place
of death: Clarkdale, AZ
Birth
date: 1846
Type
of practice: Homeopathy
States
and years of licenses:CA, 1880
Places
and dates of practices:National City, CA, Nov 7, 1911, Clarkdale,
AZ,
Dec 21, 1920
Medical
school(s): Detroit Homeopathic Medical College, 1872,
(G)
Journal
of the American Medical Association Citation: 77:1512
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One research tip the introduction gives is to use the type
of medicine the individual practiced to research related
journals for published articles. I would also urge researchers
to search local newspapers of the time for mentions of the
individual as well — frequently in small-town newspapers,
physicians were mentioned in relationship to accidents or
deaths.
There is a good deal of information in the introduction
well worth reading about how the Directory came into
being, and the AMA Deceased Physician Masterfile Database.
I assume if you find an individual within this Family Archive,
you could contact the AMA for further information.
Although this CD does not contain information that would
apply to a broad spectrum of research, being of particular
use to those researchers who believe their ancestor might
have been a physician, I recommend this as a research tool.
The information you'll find comes from a reputable source
(the AMA), and has source citations to allow researchers
to verify the details before concentrating on the particular
facts mentioned. I applaud Genealogy.com's decision to produce
such an eclectic, but useful, collection of information,
and hope they continue to make available resources which
might not be in the forefront of researchers' minds.
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Marthe Arends has
been involved in genealogy for 18 years. She has lectured on computers and genealogy
to many groups, has been the SysOp of a Fidonet genealogy BBS, has written articles
for a variety of genealogy publications, and currently writes fiction. Marthe has also written Genealogy
Software Guide and Genealogy
on CD-ROM, both published by the Genealogical
Publishing Company.
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