Mortality – GENOHISTORY

And Then There Were None: Mortality of an Alabama Household

June 7, 2026September 26, 2020 by Donna Cox Baker

A cemetery, dilapidated house and barn, and high weeds tell the story of a place once active and fine but with no one left to tend it.

Members of the Charles Sanford household seemed to have everything going for them on August 10, 1860, as the federal census taker arrived at their home in Centreville, Alabama. Wealthy white-collar town dwellers with an average age of 22.5, the mortality statistics were in their favor.[1] But death claimed them, every one, long before the census taker returned.[2]