How to Trace a Family Medical History

Medical history is an important, although often overlooked, component of a family tree. Understanding your genetic predisposition to disease can aid physicians tremendously in diagnosing and treating illness. In addition, individuals who know their health risks are more likely to develop healthy habits and engage in preventive practices. Tracing your family's medical history will not only teach you about your heritage; it can also prolong your life.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Interview your parents and siblings. Medical information about immediate family members will likely help you the most if you encounter health problems. Record information and take it with you to all medical consultations. Whether you're pregnant and seeing an Ob/Gyn for the first time, or have cancer and have an appointment with a new Oncologist, the physician will ask questions about family medical history.
2. Talk to other living relatives. If your grandparents are still alive, interview them regarding their health history and that of their parents and siblings. Ask to record the conversation or take detailed notes. Talk to your relatives about immunizations, childhood illness and chronic diseases. Also ask about hospitalizations and surgeries, whether major or minor. Find out at what age distant relatives died and the causes of death.
3. Find out about lifestyle factors that could have affected your relatives' health. If relatives smoked, drank heavily or used recreational drugs, their history of illness or cause of death may have been related to their habits rather than their genes. It's also possible that distant relatives worked in hazardous occupations that adversely affected their health, such as coal mining or crop dusting.
4. Try to get information about mental illness. This may be difficult as people have only recently begun to talk openly about psychiatric disorders. Even if a relative did not receive medical treatment for a mental illness, she may have exhibited symptoms that family members can recognize in retrospect. Ask about mood swings, suicidal behavior, impulsivity, prolonged periods of sadness and overall emotional demeanor. Some mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression are believed to have a genetic component.
5. Read death certificates and obituaries. These records can help you determine whether a potentially heritable disease such as cancer or heart attack caused your relatives' deaths. Some states black out cause of death on certificates and not all obituaries provide cause of death, but this is a good place to start your investigation.
6. Research your heritage. Some genetic illnesses tend to affect some ethnic and racial groups far more than others. African Americans, for example, are the most likely to have sickle-cell anemia, and Tay-Sachs Syndrome is most commonly found in Jewish people of Eastern European descent.
7. Ask a doctor to provide a posthumous diagnosis if there is no information about a relative's health or death. If someone suffers from a genetic abnormality that affects appearance, a physician may be able to identify an illness by looking at a photograph.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're adopted and have chronic health problems, consider finding your biological parents to obtain a medical history. If you don't want to contact your biological family, search public records for relevant information.
• Some fertility have a genetic component. Find out if any family members had stillbirths, miscarriages or fertility problems. Remember that more women lost babies in previous generations due to lack of medical care or medical technology, so family history is not necessarily an accurate indicator of your fertility or childbirth prognosis.
• If you can't interview relatives in person, or feel uncomfortable asking such personal questions, ask permission to send questionnaires. Explain why you want the information and ensure family members that you'll respect their privacy.