Chapter IV. 



FAMILIES OF BKAF-MUTES. 



Tlie leports of the Americau Asylum, New York, Ohio, Iiidiaua, and Illinois Institutions 

 show that in each institution deaf-mutes have heeu received who belong to families containing 

 five, six, or even more deaf-mutes ; and there is abundance of evidence to indicate that such fam- 

 ilies are very numerous in the United States. In cases where there are five or six children of one 

 family deaf and dumb some of them marry when they grow uj), and in many cases they marry 

 persons who belong, like themselves, to families containing several deaf-mutes. Thus it happens 

 that we have here and there, scattered over the country, groups of deaf-mute families connected 

 together by blood and marriage. 



The probability is very strong that the deaf mute children of deaf-mute marriages will at 

 some time or other make their appearance in the educational institutions of the country, and we 

 might reasonably hope to be able to trace the family relations from the published reports of the 

 institutions. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the information that can be gleaned in this 

 way is very fragmentary and uncertain, for the names of the husbands and wives of the pupils are 

 rarely quoted, so that it is impossible in the great majority of cases to trace the connections. A 

 female deaf-mute, when she marries, changes her name to that of her husband; the new name is 

 not recorded iu the institution reports, and we lose track of her branch of the family. Should she 

 have deaf offspring they make their api)earance in the institution under another family name, and 

 the connection is not obvious. So far as my researches have gone they indicate the probability 

 of a connection by blood or marriage between many of the largest of the deaf mute families of 

 the New England States. 



In the following diagram (Fig. 1) I exhibit the results of an attempt to trace the connections 

 of the Brown family, of Henniker, N. H., in which there are known to be at least four generations 

 of deaf-mutes. 



O lutlicates a hearing and speaking jjeraon. 

 ^ Iiiilicatcs a deaf-mute. 

 = Iiiuicatos marriage. 



o 



.Miiapvevui^l 



:l'04 



yiG. 1. — The Brown family of llennikor, N. H., and a few of its connections. 



