Should we delete Category:Causes of Death? [closed]

+35 votes
2.3k views

Hi Everyone, 

There was a recent complaint about a category called [[C:Killed by Indians]], which was questioned in a G2G post. It's still there, since we have not agreed on a substitute name for such a thing and there are several alternatives to discuss. Killed by Indians is placed in the [[C:Causes of Death]], which is a subcategory of [[C:Health]]. Currently [[C:Causes of Death]] contains categories for diseases, accidents, "old age" etc.Some are causes pulled directly from a death certificate (Cerebral Hemmorhage), others are based on what's pulled from an obituary. (Kicked by Horse). 

In the Categorization project forum, we decided to form a small team to review/revamp the [[C:Causes of Death]]. Five of us have been meeting to discuss what to do. In the course of this discussion, we hit a wall and realized that the best idea might be to simply delete [[C:Causes of Death]].  We think this is best explained and described in the biography of a profile. Grouping profiles of everyone who died of a heart attack doesn't seem to serve any real purpose.  Things like pandemics and infectious diseases are covered under the WW Disasters Project. General things like "old age" can be applied to millions of profiles and grouping them this way serves no real purpose.

In the last year or so, we've been talking more and more about the genealogical purposes being a foundation for our category system (vs. encyclopedic knowledge as seen at Wikipedia.) We have also been discussing the idea that categories should come from the written biography which is, in turn, sourced. Categories are not a substitute for a written bio.

With these things in mind, should we delete [[Category:Causes of Death]]?

We invite all of your input. 

Thanks, Steven, Natalie, and  Doug

EDIT: Bear in mind that this has NO bearing on Roll of Honor, WWDisasters categories or any other project categories. Diseases will remain as [[Category:Diseases]].

closed with the note: Overwhelming consensus is to remove the Cause of Death Category
in Policy and Style by Natalie Trott G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
closed by Steven Harris
almost everything is still there. We have been removing some categories from orphaned profiles that have no biography though.
Personal categories has been mentioned a couple times but it is not a solution. Personal categories are not collaborative and do not fit in the one family tree; I don't use them and I certainly wouldn't use them on 19th century and earlier profiles. A personal "cause of death" category truly adds nothing that isn't better done with a note in the biography, since it only gets one genealogist's profiles.

When I say "my family tree" on Wikitree, I mean all of Wikitree, rooted at my profile.

Also, again while I had not been following G2G the past couple weeks for personal reasons, I first noticed this topic when categories started deleting from my watchlist.

Nathan, I think you may be confusing Categories with a tagging system, but to make sure we are all on the same page, can you clarify what you mean by "Having these encoded semantically in a way that can be queried is valuable"? How are you querying data in categories?

On another note, you mentioned "I struggled with how "Causes of Death" is not genealogically relevant." I don't think anyone here has said that the cause of death is not genealogically relevant. What they have said is that the way it has been setup and used in categories is not genealogically relevant.

Should we have Category:Earth and tag every single profile in it? Does this provide us with ANY benefit? This is what the COD categories are doing. We are not here to collect data on specific topics, so this becomes a useless grouping of random unconnected profiles.

To help stress the point - no one is debating the relevance of death, we are debating the relevance of a category (and subcategories) that are so broad and useless that they would potentially hold millions (or more!) profiles in them. Just because some of these categories may go away right now does not mean that a person or project cannot submit a structure proposal for handling all of this type of data in the future, in a way that makes the categories and groupings genealogically relevant.

Steven, we do have a Category:Earth, except it is called "Category:Regions", and it's not up for deletion. And several people here are arguing that causes of death aren't genealogically relevant.

Again, I know this topic is closed, but I didn't get to participate until categories that I created started disappearing, and while the Categorization project should certainly be the home for categorization issues, "Causes of Death" affects every Wikitreer in a way in that everyone should use categories and every profile has a cause of death, and there were dozens if not hundreds of subcategories in wide use. I don't have much more to say and I figure I might as well comment here rather than reopen a new question.

As far as "tagging system", Categories is all we have on Wikitree in its current form. The current web front end doesn't make querying off of categories easy, but that can change, and categories are already used to generate reports and by bots.

Category:Regions was adopted and approved by the community through months of collaboration. Projects have adopted the structures, provided naming and structure guidelines, help to maintain the categories, etc.

Causes of Death was setup in 2016 with no formal proposal or adoption by the community, no guidelines on the intent and purpose of the category, and no overseeing project to help guide and maintain the category. It was expanded by users in a manner that was inconsistent with collaboration and value.

I have reviewed the comments again and I cannot find a reference to a cause of death not being genealogically relevant, rather what I have read indicates that the category structure and naming, and the subsequent groupings of profiles as being useless in their current form.

As I mentioned previously, if you have an interest in this type of structure, you are more than welcome, and highly encouraged, to submit a structure proposal for a new Cause of Death (or subdivision of Health) structure.

One of my great grandfathers died by falling on a hay fork and I was disappointed there was no category for that.

I found cause of death cerebral Hemorrhage. Some cause of death can be important to people like me. I prone to strokes because of heart issues. This important to know he had Cerebral Hemorrhage as I can watch out as he’s a grandparent. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Query-213

Billie 

@Billie, if known, it should definitely be in the prose of the profile (as you have done). The point of the discussion is that there is little value in providing a category structure to group all of the people who died of Cerebral Hemorrhage everywhere and at any time. Finding clusters by place and time is better done by local health authorities, then referenced by genealogists.

Just knowing the cause of death may not be useful for your genetic illness search either, as only one thing is a cause of death, and could be unrelated to several other diseases that would be interesting to you

While closed, I see that a work-around has been implemented that continues at least a large subset of cause of death categorization via "Accidental Deaths"

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Accidental_Deaths

So causes of death are still being categorized.

They are. Accidents have been used by disasters project, so we left them in.

I don't see why we need "Deaths from Unsafe Abortions" though. It seems like it would be difficult to use this category unless the COD was specific enough. The two included profiles do list this as a cause of death though.

THere is also a work around in that diseases still have categories.

24 Answers

+24 votes
Yes, we should delete the Category: Causes of Death.
by Eva Ekeblad G2G6 Pilot (573k points)
+13 votes
Does this work like getting something accepted .. need x number of answers before it is a done deal?

If so (despite my attempted humour in comment form) .. I support the removal of the category.
by Melanie Paul G2G6 Pilot (422k points)
No it's not a numbers thing, but we wanted to hear opinions. We polled Categorization members and leaders, none of whom were of the opinion that it should remain. Some questioned how this would affect Roll of Honor or epidemics, etc. It won't; we'll simply remove CoD as a parent category of the subcategories. Some of the causes (which are subcategories) will also be deleted (killed by Indians, kicked by horse, old age) but others will be recategorized. I plan to review the diseases category, too, sometime later this year.
Why would "kicked by horse" be removed? Maybe you are not interested in knowing all the people who died by being kicked by a horse, but there are those who may want to know this. Being kicked by a horse was a common cause of death, as was also falling off a horse. There was a young x-great uncle in my family who died at eight years because he was kicked by a horse. I would be interested in following up on this topic some day and see who else during what time period was also killed by being kicked by a horse.

Death is an important topic, even if it is not something we like to talk about. I woke up this morning to learn my grand niece was involved in a horrific car accident last night. Her grandmother (my aunt) was supposed to leave today to attend a wedding where she was supposed to be the Maid of Honor. This is real life, and it will change the futures of several close people. Someday, this will be history, and we will see the consequences of these events. In the same way, my ancestors experienced death at the hands of Indians. They watched the tomahawks sinking into their friends and families backs. They returned to see the unborn fetus cut from the mother and impaled on a pike in the yard. They saw the missing scalps. These events led to other events, which became the world we live in, today. Forgetting these events, or hiding them, or preventing them from being categorized, isn't going to change the past, and it is not going to make us feel better. The world is the way it is, and everybody should have the tools for discovering their pasts, even if there are dark events in those pasts.
Rest assured, the reason for wanting to delete the category has nothing to do with not liking the topic or feeling the need to hide it. We encourage people to write about it in the biography.

Death is a part of life, and I prefer a bio to be about the life, with mention of the death and disposition of the remains as details. Nobody is saying to leave it out.

Killed by Indians is an insensitive term in our times. Yes, your ancestor and family experienced a horrific death. It's hard to look at the facts and realize that they were unwelcomed by the people that were already living in these land. Their way of living had been threatened by the presence of new people who looked differently. Those people who were already here dealt with this threat the only way they knew how.

Your grand-neice. How awful and I'm so sorry for your loss, David. Do you really want to write a bio about her, including loving details of her life, then boil it down to a category like [[Category:Motor Vehicle Accident]]? I know I would not.

"Your grand-neice. How awful and I'm so sorry for your loss"

Thanks, and I am sorry for giving the impression she died. Right now, she is in the hospital for a lot of broken bones and internal bleeding. With today's technology, we are hoping for a full recovery. 

+20 votes
Yes, it should be deleted.
by Deb Durham G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
+16 votes
I agree we should delete Causes of Death.  If we want to add a category for persons who died in a disaster like "Victims of the Xenia Tornado", or "Fatalities of the Monongah Coal Mine" we can file it in the location categories.
by Saundra Stewart G2G6 Mach 6 (61.5k points)
Exactly! And they would fit best under Worldwide Disasters Project and its subprojects.
Natalie, how would a localized weather event fall under *worldwide* disasters? In fact what *would* qualify as a worldwide disaster ? Possibly the 1918 flu epidemic? What else was worldwide?
WWD breaks down into locations categories as well as types of disasters. In the US, they break down to counties, so the Xenia Tornado would presumable fall under [[C:Greene County, Ohio, Disasters]]. The 1918 Flu Pandemic falls under [[C:Health Disasters]], and it also breaks down into lower levels in locations. (Health disasters seem to include both epidemics and pandemics).  I was using WWD as a "whole" but it does have a very wide scope and has subcategories across the globe.

"worldwide" means something pretty specific to me -- a disaster that had worldwide impact (as opposed to an overarching category).

But I'm going to leave it to you all to figure out categorization structure.  

I am not a fan of the current categorization usage AND am thrilled to hear that the Cat. project is reviewing the purpose of Cat. and wanting to refocus its use on genealogical purposes. Absolutely thrilled. Thanks for all the work you all are doing. 

I'll shut up now. :-)

"Worldwide Disasters" is the official name of the project and I guess was intended to mean "Disasters all over the world" rather than disasters that had a worldwide impact. For instance, they manage lots of spaces for local mining disasters.

(Edited for clarity)
+17 votes
Yes, delete the category. It really doesn’t serve a genealogical purpose.
by Pip Sheppard G2G Astronaut (2.7m points)
+17 votes
Yes, the category should be deleted.
by Laurie Cruthers G2G6 Pilot (166k points)
+16 votes
I agree completely. This category serves no purpose. It should be deleted.
by Dave Rutherford G2G6 Pilot (127k points)
+16 votes
Yes, please delete the category.
by Maggie Andersson G2G6 Pilot (151k points)
+14 votes
Yes. I think that it should be deleted.

I recently found one for "Gunshot". ...

I am in favour of a move to genealogically useful categories; I would also like to be able to display them at the end of the profile rather than the beginning. Who wants a biography that begins with pages and pages  of  unrelated people ?  :-)
by Joe Farler G2G6 Pilot (151k points)
+5 votes

I am in favour of deleting that category (and the subcategories under it), but I'd like to suggest that, rather than putting that information into the biography, where it's hard to parse, that instead, we create a new field (or, to be more precise, fields, because at least on British Columbia death registrations, there are about four boxes for proximate cause and contributing causes of death).

The reason I suggest that stems from an earlier thread, where I discussed the possibility of using the information contained on WikiTree for research purposes. In the case of cause of death, it may be that, with enough accumulated data, researchers could identify "hot spots" for particular causes of death in particular places, and go on to identify (and hopefully fix) the causes. But it would be a lot easier to do those kinds of correlations if there were fields for causes of death than by having to isolate them out of biographies.

by Greg Slade G2G6 Pilot (679k points)
Totally out of "category" realm, Greg, and more of a technical thing that would have to be done.

hot spots for particular causes of death????  Excuse me for laughing, but what you would probably get would be a lot of loggers dying in logging camps or forests, people dying in hospital from disease or other, people dying on roads from traffic accidents.  Some things are just too broad and general to do any sort of valid research on that way, and location is mostly among them, unless you are looking at cases of silicosis next to a mine.

Think Erin Brockovich.
who?  Never heard of him.
Thanks Melanie, hasn't crossed the border much in my neck of the woods.
New fields aren't going to happen.  But that's the point.  Categories could be a partial substitute for all the fields the database doesn't have.

This works very well with the Limit to Watchlist feature.

Which means it could be leveraged by having more pseudo-project accounts.
But being a substitute data field is not the purpose of WT categories.

IMHO, Greg points to the right direction.
He said "Yes, delete it, but take countermeasures not to lost this information completely."

If you're gonna programmatically delete information some users had entered, don't simple delete it. This would be a slap in the face of your users, who had at least invested time to enter this information (mostly manually, by the way!).
I think that any information of a person upvalues the profile (and Wikitree itself) and we should not intentional delete information.

If the bio is the correct place: Ensure that the information has been (or is being) entered into the biography. Programmatically, this could be done by entering a simple text at the end of the biography (possibly at the Research Notes section, e.g. "Cause of Death: ...."), so that the death information is not LOST after a category deletion, instead automatically preserved:
If the death cause was already mentioned in the bio, this sentence could be easily cleaned up afterwards by the user. If it was not mentioned, it enhanced/upvalues the profile.

Why not create an extra profile data field / database field like "Place of Death" but "Cause of Death" and convert the category information (as simple string) into it?

what would be deleted is the categories, not the text in bios, which would not be affected in the least.  The bio can state how the person died.  Doesn't need a category for that.

Why would we create an extra data field for cause of death?  For most profiles this would either be blank since we don't know what it was, or nebulous like ''old age''; it would just be cluttering up the profile page.

But being a substitute data field is not the purpose of WT categories.

And yet, the biggest categories are Unsourced Profiles and Estimated Birth Date, and both of those are just substitute data flags.  And the not-the-purpose use of Unsourced Profiles is built into the software through the Unsourced item on the Find menu and the Unsourced "button" on the Watchlist page.

Unsourced is a specific tag that acts as a big red flag so people put sources in, not supposed to remain on the profile indefinitely.  Estimated birth date I made a proposal a while back to have 2 sorts of templates for that, since for some we will never find the data, it just doesn't exist any more.

what would be deleted is the categories, not the text in bios, which would not be affected in the least.  The bio can state how the person died.  Doesn't need a category for that.

I agree - and you misunderstood me completely. Have you read my post?
I do not want to delete the text in the bio, i want to add it. We are d'accord at this.

But transfer it from the category / add it to the bio without the need for a error prone user action / time consuming manual task. Do it  automatically (by EditBot), it was designed for those changes! Don't just delete the category and hope that the users add it to the bio.

Why would we create an extra data field for cause of death?  For most profiles this would either be blank since we don't know what it was, or nebulous like ''old age''

Why is there an extra field of death or birth place, if one could also enter "died 15 Feb 1786 in Oklahoma, US" directly to the bio?

Because: It has a great advantage, when you have data as seperated data fields, e. g. easier handling and the possibility of automation. Ask Aleš what's easier to maintain and work with: to have data in seperate data fields, or all together as text strings anywhere in a bio.

Advantages:

  • You could display the data everywhere, not only on the profile page.
  • You could sort watchlists by the data
  • You would be able to easily translate it into other languages if desired
  • You can easily show errors (e.g. writing mistakes) (analog to the "birth and death to far away", "marriage after death, ... of Wikitree+)
  • You can correct mistakes automatically (sort of EditBot)

Disadvantages:

  • a field more at the edit page
  • data space at the database (but less than if the data is written in a sentence of the bio!)
  • time consumption to set up (but not as if every user had to add the sentence to the bio!)

Of course, I see the big advantage for a simple deletion: It could be done without any effort for the maintainers. Remove it and let the user do it...

The problem of a simple deletion without effort of converting it: You are loosing information on Wikitree profiles which is/was important to the profile manager. The only gain would be a cleaner category structure.

it would just be cluttering up the profile page.

Don't show it on the profile page if it's empty. Just give the user the possibility to enter it and Aleš/Wikitree the possibility to use it wherever/however it will be wanted in the future.

on the extra data field, see the answer below that covers that aspect, not at all easy.  I can well believe it not being easy, we can't even get multiple languages in data field headers.
+7 votes
I vote No, because I don't see the purpose in why something like that should be removed. Besides, its nice to see something other than "Killed in Action"
by Richard Shelley G2G6 Pilot (247k points)

I wasn't suggesting keeping it under this category.  I was suggesting it MIGHT, in cases of a mental issue, fit under the existing categories for illnesses.  Because you asked what "genealogical purpose would a suicide category have?".

that point of possibly mental issues running in families is debatable, since you may have only one child out of a bunch that exhibits such tendencies mirroring a parent's tendencies.  And in any case, suicide would only be a result of such supposed mental illness.  The science of genetics being in its infancy, we cannot aver that this is definitely linked to genetics.  And if there is a known family propensity for such, it belongs in a name study, not in a cause of death category.

And if there is a known family propensity for such, it belongs in a name study, not in a cause of death category.

.

Pretty much the point I was making .. at least the "doesn't belong in a cause of death category" part.  :) 

Suicides run in families? Well, there are 3 suicides that I know of in my family but these people are not related at all ! (not related one to the other though they are all related to me). And if someone sticks a Suicide category on them I'll remove it. I would consider it a distressing label that in the end tells nothing of their story.

I don't think suicides "run" in families .. but depression (which can lead to suicide or suicidal thoughts) does.  It is the depression that should be recorded for genealogical purposes, not how they died. 

(I would not use a category to record a suicide.  In fact, I did not do so for my collateral relative's father.  It wasn't the sum of the man.  It was a sad ending note.  Of more importance to me was that he was so depressed after losing his wife, but his children and grandchildren did not seem to be depressive (at least, not the ones I know about), so perhaps his was situational, not genealogical.)

Cause of death belongs in the biography, not as a category entry.

I agree Melanie. And depression per se is not a cause of death, and neither is suicide technically. The actual cause of death would be, for instance, suffocation if the person hanged themselves ; or poisoning, or... Which is one of the reasons a Cause of Death category is such a problem.

Unfortunately, grief has been getting associated with ''depression'' recently.  Not the same thing at all, the man spent his life with his wife, now she is gone, there's a big part of his life missing.  That isn't depression that is grief.  Which is not an illness, it's a state of facts.

In the case of my collateral .. his doctor diagnosed Depression, but others also related to his "being down" to the loss of the wife several years earlier.  So the chances are high he was a depressive "type" and it wasn't apparent until after his wife died.

Also, there is Depression and there is being depressed.  Not at all the same thing, clinically.  Depression is a medical thing that causes actual chemical changes in the brain.  It usually lasts a lot longer than simply* being depressed; and frequently requires medication to reset those chemicals/synapses.  Being depressed can have many causes, one of which is loss / grief.   It is emotional, not physical, although it can evidence physical symptoms.  This will normally "heal" with time; not because you "get over it", but because time makes it easier to bear.  (And the "experts" are finally coming to realise this.  That you do NOT "get over" grief.  You adjust to it and learn to live with it, but it is always there, in some way.)

.

There's a thing out there (I think it's Australian) called "Black Dog", where the guy talks of Depression being the Black Dog that he carries.  Well worth a read (even if I haven't kept up with it the last year-plus).

.

.

* Please don't anyone take offense at the word "simply".  It's not meant to imply that being depressed is a simple thing; because it isn't.  At all. Bu using "just" didn't seem any better a choice.

So we're talking about Depression now? I grew up facing 18 years of violence and abuse. Depression? Yup, and that led to the plan of suicide
Melanie, we've gotten somewhat far from the topic here, but have a look at this:  https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Szasz/myth.htm
+15 votes
I have always found the Cause of Death category (and some of the categories under it) disturbing and I'm all for deleting it. The alternatives under Diseases and Disasters make much more sense.
by Isabelle Martin G2G6 Pilot (568k points)
+13 votes
I personally believe we have too many categories that don't seem to fit within a genealogical context, and agree that the Category: Causes of Death should be deleted.  If people want to include those details on a profile, they are better in the biography.
by John Atkinson G2G6 Pilot (620k points)
+12 votes
I agree to deletion. We already have categories for global disasters and suchlike. The more commonplace and bizarre ones should be noted in the bio IMHO :)
by Wendy Sullivan G2G6 Pilot (159k points)
+11 votes

To put it bluntly, Kill them all!  laugh

Of course, epidemics get their own tree structure in any case, don't need to have an extra layer added to them.  Same goes for Killed in Action in Military and War, or Executed in Black Sheep project.  Those are relevant categories to those subjects.

by Danielle Liard G2G6 Pilot (659k points)
+10 votes

Do we not consider genetics, as in DNA, genealogically relevant?

As many causes of death are the result of our genetics, would they not be genealogically relevant?

In my opinion, Causes of Death categories are just as genealogically relevant as categories for locations, occupations, military, cemeteries, etc.


by Lindy Jones G2G6 Pilot (256k points)
For cases when death was caused by a genetic disease, the genetic disease category will still be available, but under diseases, not Cause of Death. I believe this makes sense, because it is possible to be affected by a hereditary condition without dying of it.

A lot of categories under Cause of Death are not hereditary diseases. Those will be dealt with in a case by case basis, a lot of them will be moved and not deleted. The proposal is just for the Causes of Death category itself.
But why is Causes of Death not a relevant category name?

How does removing that one category from the hierarchy improve WikiTree?

How does Cause of Death bring anything to Wikitree as a category?  Consider the cause '' killed by a tree''.  Happened a lot in early colonial days, as people were clearing land.  But it happened all over the place, and has no relevance to grouping people for a particular purpose/study.  

Basically the cause of death category is something that takes a lot of work and attention to get right in the first place, and brings zip in return.  I prefer spending my time getting research done to put in bios for people rather than spending time on such a category type.

This category (through its sub-category structure) does what any other category does - it groups profiles with common characteristics into an easy-to-access file. WikiTreers who are interested in the sub-categories are then able to do research on the profiles listed in the categories. Their research may not be relevant to any/many of their fellow WikiTreers, but that does not invalidate their research; nor should it prevent their research or remove a valid category hierarchy.

The problem is not the top-level category Causes of Death itself, but it lies within the sub-category structure. Categorization works from general criteria to specific criteria. The Causes of Death hierarchy may have missing sub-category levels; it may need further sub-categorization; it may need additional cross-referencing; and it most likely needs more volunteers to work out these problems. But, in my opinion, deleting the top-level category will only worsen the problems, not solve them.

Everything we do on WikiTree takes a lot of work, not just categorization. But none of that work is so earth shattering that it must be done now or that it must undue the work that has already been done. If we don't have enough WikiTreers willing to work on this problem, then we can always postpone any major overhauls until we have sufficient time and energy to do the job properly.
It also shows trends perhaps family trends - I do not get why everyone seems to want to get rid of anything negative about any profile - we take the good with the bad - this is history it is not all hearts and flowers - get real!
It's not at all about wanting to get rid of negative stuff, else the Black Sheep project, which deals with murderers, traitors, and criminals of various natures would not exist.  Certainly cannot say the histories of the persons concerned isn't negative.
+11 votes

I feel the Causes of Death Category should be removed, but the community should still be mindful of major life events. 

While some argue that causes of death have no genealogical benefit, which I understand, WikiTree also emphasizes the use of a biography and life story. At times, a person's death is a significant part of who they are as a person or defines their legacy in a way. 

Perhaps AIDS deaths should still have their own category under Worldwide Disease. Donner Party has their own category, but stacking it with Starvation seems excessive: Jeremiah Foster

I think doing away with the categories should cut down on bloat overall, but could also increase the creation of disaster pages. 

by Patricia Ferdig G2G6 Mach 3 (36.5k points)
indeed, even I have heard of the Donner party disaster, and I don't live anywhere near there.  And you're right, the Starvation category brings nothing to it.
+12 votes
I support deleting this category and all its sub-categories.  This information can be written into the bio.
by Amy Gilpin G2G6 Pilot (216k points)
+7 votes
I would prefer no. And to leave cause of death as a category.. The information would be buried in many bios that are of any length. I am not sure I agree that data on cause of death is not useful. It can have regional usefulness as well as documenting illnesses passed on genetically. Knowing how many in my family died of breast cancer has been useful. How many former family members had heart disease or congenital conditions that brought on their demise. Yes you could set up personal categories to track this and yes it seems macabre but so is documenting cemeteries. I would presume that if cause of death is removed we could also remove occupations as they can documented  be in the biography. And diseases, genetic conditions, and health conditions such as blindness. All of these are probably already in the biographies.
by Lianne Trevarthen G2G6 Mach 4 (46.7k points)
That would fall under disease categories, which are not affected by this, cause of death is thus redundant.  

Cause of death can be quite misleading in records.  Somebody died of ''consumption'' say, but that term was applied to more than one form of illness, most of them TB related, but not all.  

Or heart attack, now there's one that can be totally misleading.  There is an illness called pheochromocytoma, which is a tumour on the adrenals.  Most definitely can kill a person if not gotten out.  Used to be it was only identified on autopsy, else the person was deemed to have died of a heart attack.  It first got identified in 1886.  It is also commonly known by people affected as ''the great mimic'', due to the variety of symptoms which are similar to other ailments.  Still takes a devil of a time to get diagnosed for a lot of people, since it is classified as a ''rare'' disease.  Just so you know, been there done that.
+13 votes
I agree to the removal of the category.

In my view, there is no meaningful genealogical information to be had from looking at a list that puts someone who died of measles in London in 1750 next to someone who died of measles in Los Angeles in 1950.

As others have noted, there are other categorisation options available for tracking connected deaths (e.g. epidemics or disasters) or to track pertinent medical information in particular families.
by Suzanne Doig G2G6 Mach 3 (38.8k points)
If the words are in the biography, a WT+ text search will come in handy.

http://wikitree.sdms.si/function/WTWebProfileSearch/Profiles.htm?Query=Measles&MaxProfiles=1000&SortOrder=Default&PageSize=500

In my WT+ search, there are many there without a [[Category:Measles]] attached.

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58 views asked Nov 24, 2023 in Genealogy Help by L. Harrington G2G6 Mach 1 (15.0k points)
+7 votes
5 answers
+8 votes
2 answers
+3 votes
2 answers
260 views asked Jan 5 in The Tree House by Jennifer Robins G2G6 Pilot (254k points)
+7 votes
0 answers
97 views asked May 24, 2021 in Genealogy Help by Bill Feidt G2G6 Mach 4 (49.7k points)
+2 votes
1 answer
+5 votes
0 answers
76 views asked Jan 26 in WikiTree Help by Maria Campos G2G4 (4.2k points)

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