I loved this book. It is very informative, the writing style is easy to read and the book flows well. I enjoyed it from the first page until the last one.

This is a thorough and well-done guide to common, and not so common, causes of death in the past, particularly in the British Isles. It’s good for genealogical research or for those simply interested in the subject. I’ll add in here that I seem to have a rather large number of ancestors who were beheaded. You never know what you’ll find when researching your ancestors!

How Our Ancestors Died is an informative read for those interested in genealogy and/or the history of diseases.
While I don´t live in the UK (or have ancestors from there) it still gave me some great tips for my own research.
Layman-accessible and interesting read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Dr Simon Wills and Pen & Sword for the advance reader copy

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of How Our Ancestors Died: A Guide for Family Historians in exchange for an honest review. I was quickly sucked into this book. It was a very interesting read and covered a wide variety of possible causes of death. Dr. Wills’ writing was easy to follow, yet very detailed and thorough. I appreciate that he explained how causes of death changed over time as well as made connections with the impact of medical science. However, I would say the greatest contribution of this book is that Dr. Wills provides instruction on how to find and interpret patient records/documents. I look forward to future works by this author.

This was a very interesting book if you like medical subjects. And some I do, unless you get TOO medical. But I was interested in all the different diseases our ancestors had to go through before so many breakthroughs. I’m from America, and this book writes about British ancestors and medical issues, but many Americans and myself as well had British ancestors, so this was very intriguing to read. Thank you to #NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read #HowOurAncestorsDied with my honest review and thoughts.

This is a science book about epidemiology of deaths in older Times. It describes how different people died in past. It clearly shows with time pattern of disease have changed. Infections were more common. So we're nutritional deficiencies. It is very engaging book with detailed explanation of circumstances and symptoms of diseases.

An excellent resource for genealogists everywhere, not just in the United Kingdom. Understanding how diseases and death were handled in past decades and generations exponentially expands the coherency of historical records.

I was intrigued by the title of this book because I love history and do quite a bit of ancestry research. As the genealogist for my family, I have had the opportunity to trace my family line back to the 1600's. I have quite a bit of information on where they lived, what jobs they had, number of children raised, but next to nothing about how they died (many at a very young age). In many cases, the death certificates that I was able to obtain, did not list a cause of death. I was able to take the information in the book and piece together what diseases and treatments (or lack of) were available at a certain time in history and surmise how some of my ancestors may have died. Dr. Wills did a fabulous job of explaining the prevalence of certain diseases, how doctors thought they were doing good by their patients (and explaining how some doctors knew they were practicing quackery), and the survival rates for various maladies in different eras of history. And, considering that most of the history presented in the book mainly dealt with England, and that is where my family is from, made this book an even more fascinating read. By the end of the book, I had a true appreciation for the extremely hard lives that our ancestors lived and a gratefulness that I live in the century that I do now! I thank Pen & Sword and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

This is an well researched, easy to read guide to how British ancestors died, in alphabetical order. Some of it can be extrapolated to other regions, but it is decidedly European in nature, specifically about England. It covers everything from cancer to starvation to wounds to suicide to childbirth to yellow fever and more. It also really goes into details about how to find out what your ancestors died of, like sites you can search for lists of people who may have died in the navy or in accidents and so on. There are lots of England-centered resources for finding names, causes, etc. It's an interesting read even if your ancestors didn't happen to come from that region, definitely designed for those who enjoy researching family trees. I'm not sure how accurate it really is but it's a good way to find out how people at least thought your particular ancestors died.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

"How Our Ancestors Died" explains how to find out how your British ancestors died and what the various medical terms mean. The focus seemed mostly on the late 1700s to modern day, though he did comment on occurrences (of plague, etc.) further back in history. The author started by explaining the basic medical practices of the time and how to find death reports. He then talked about specific, common ways that people died, including basic information about the disease or examples of common fatal accidents as well as explaining the words that were used to describe that disease at the time. He covered accidents, childhood diseases, cholera, chest infections, bowel infections, influenza, plague, smallpox, tropical diseases, tuberculosis, typhus, venereal disease, heart problems, epilepsy, stroke, war, wounds, childbirth, suicide, scurvy, execution, murder, starvation, food poisoning, other poisoning, and more. He also talked about historical problems like dietary deficiencies, alcoholism, mental illness, pregnancy, etc. This book contained useful information on finding out how your ancestors died: both where to look for documentation and for understanding what's on the documents.

Princess Fuzzypants here: The jury is out whether this is the wrong or the perfect book to read during a pandemic. It certainly is an interesting one. It looks at all the different causes of death for our ancestors. Obviously, it can be a tiny bit grizzly but then, we are talking about some rather unpleasant diseases and conditions.

It is fascinating to see how many of the misunderstood causes, many of them lumped together into a general hodgepodge, were later identified as various ailments with specific treatments thanks to the increasing technology and knowledge. The treatments were, shall we say, interesting and in many ways counter productive., often exacerbating something minor into life threatening. But as we have conquered some commonplace causes of death, modern society has replaced them with new and “improved” ones that no one centuries ago could have fathomed ever. It certainly does present a convincing argument to the anti-vaccines movement as many of the common causes are now gone, or would be, if everyone was vaccinated.

I suppose someone with an interest in the minutiae of genealogy might be fascinated to find out how an ancestor from the beginning of record keeping succumbed. Perhaps if one has a rather unusual condition, it might be good to find out that it was inherited from someone several times removed. For the average reader, I am uncertain how much interest there might be but it certainly provides fascinating if macabre reading.

Four purrs and two paws up.

Interesting account of the history of diseases and causes of death and how it ties in to genealogy. I found it particularly fascinating as I work in the field of medical information. This book was UK-centric, but much of it can be generalized to practices that would have occurred in North America and other places.

Soooo...... I'm not really sure what I thought this book was going to be, but it definitely wasn't what I expected. I was kind of expecting an interesting anecdotal book with stories of sicknesses through the years. This was more like a media textbook and completely lost me.

This was a very interesting take on a side of history we usually just briefly talk about. I found it very informative and full of new information (to me, at least). I definitely recommend this book to fans of history who want to dive deeper.

My thanks to NetGalley and Pen and Sword for a copy of “How our Ancestors Died “for an honest review.
I eagerly look forward to any new Pen and Sword publications as I know how beneficial they have been to my family history research. I’ve found previous books by Dr Simon Wills very useful
Even as someone who has been compiling their family tree for a while now I seem to find something of use in every new publication .
A very interesting and informative read which I’m sure will continue to be of use when I’m looking into the lives of my ancestors.

You can find more accurate and better-cited information on diseases of past years on Wikipedia, and none of the info you'll find there is saturated with the absolute position of privilege that Willis asserts in his claims that no one dies of famine anymore. The information on doing genealogical research is likewise dated and supplanted by what's easily found online. I have no idea why anyone would publish this book.

As someone who has done a lot of genealogy research, I really appreciated the tips this book gave! Not only would it be helpful in deciphering outdated reasons listed as "cause of death" on a death certificate, it also points you to where you could find death information on your English ancestor. This is especially helpful for a genealogist from another country who is not familiar with the different British agencies that would possibly have information regarding your ancestors. A good resource to add to your genealogy shelf.

A really interesting and informative book about diseases and causes of death in previous generations. A particularly good source of information for family history buffs!

I came across this book after doing a bit of my own family research. I knew that my grandmother had had 6 children, but only 2 of them survived toddlerhood. As I found one baby born 2 years after my father (and their local paper just had a list of women who had had babies that particular week and next to their names, either S for son or D for daughter), I noticed a column dedicated to that weeks deaths. There were the usual older people but what struck me was how very many babies and toddlers were listed. It was so sad. So, I started to wonder what on earth all these babies died from? And this book has given me a good idea. In fact, it is surprising to me that there were enough ancestors and their offspring who made it through to adulthood that our family continued at all - there were so many diseases to kill us along the way! Even my own father had a bout of TB when he was around 12 (caught from his clarinet teacher by sharing a mouthpiece), yikes.

The book is in alphabetical order and it gives insight as to what diseases plagued our ancestors, and the alternate names for them, if you are looking up death certificates and the like. As a nurse, I found the whole thing fascinating and Dr Wills has done a fantastic job of describing what everyday life was like for our ancestors, in easy to understand language. I am eternally grateful to be living now, with antibiotics and vaccines etc.

5 stars from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pen & Sword.

I was given this book for an honest review from netgalley
#netgalley
I found this book extremely informative and also really entertaining. A lot of information that I didn't know before. I highly recommend.

How Our Ancestors Died by Dr Simon Willis is a thorough look at not only diseases of the day, but potential treatments, causes, and the general culture surrounding illnesses. It is not so much a book to sit and read, although it is readable enough, as it is a reference work for varying time periods for use by a historian, a genealogist, or a writer. It appears to be well-researched and accurate. There is a thorough bibliography attached as well. This is a go-to book for people who require this information in a concise, readable format.

I was invited to read a free ARC of How Our Ancestors Died By Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #netgalley #howourancestorsdied