A couple of things have struck me. Despite all we have heard about the huge number of women dying in childbirth, these women did not seem to. Of course they survived a famine and life on coffin ships. They lived to ripe old ages, as did their husbands (I am talking about the original immigrants, probably born 1830 and immigrated around 1850), unless they were involved in accidents involving quite often farm animals. Their sons who worked on the railroad were quite often involved in awful train accidents. There also seemed to be a trend for young women to die, like at 18 or so..of things like typhoid..perhaps more than other age groups. There also seemed to be more twins and one set of triplets than I would be expecting. From Clermont sometimes groups of young men or couples moved to South Dakota, MOntana etc. Many of the men worked on the railroads, as did quite a few in my family. This truly has the makings of a great American novel or drama or reality TV or whatever. I am only doing the Irish..there were subsequent waves of Germans and Norwegians, and of course preceding Sioux and Winnebago and I hope someone does the same for them. mg