As I was making family trees for clients, I began to realize a medical history beginning to form. Things like pulmonary hypertension, heart and stroke, diabetes, and even aneurisms. At times it was amazing how strong the medical history ran through a line.
As I had been a Station Secretary in a previous job, I realized that reporting this history to your doctor might be important. So now when I see that quite a few people in a family tree have died of aneurisms, for instance, I let my client know, and suggest they tell their doctor. It may be nothing or it may be something. I feel it is better to tell your doctor and let them decide.
Making family trees is fun and informative about family history, it might also be a good way to find medical history in a line, too. I include medical family history in your tree, if I find it. That is why I feel it is important to have death certificates available for purchase on extended family members. It is a good way to know, officially, how someone died. It may just help someone avoid having medical problems which are genetically related by changing a lifestyle or catching the problem before it gets to be a problem.
