If you or your child is on the autism spectrum and you are wondering why; a good place to start to find out about autism is the genealogy section of your local library. Family historians will tell you that there are clues in documents such as census releases as to whether you may have high-end autism spectrum family members in your recent past. Recent means in the last 200 or so years. Indeed, in some cases, when people emigrated from one country to another the paper work, all hand written by authorities at that time, may also provide clues. The other thing you should focus on is who married, and or had children. Who appeared to spend a life time living alone, without children, unpartnered or moving from location to location. It is possible to gather together lots of records and to build a picture that can give clues to the presence of autism. Often documents such as the census records will specifically state what may appear to be rude comments such as 'slow-witted' - and various other similar phrases, these was no standardisation in those days. What you are doing is going in search of the lives of dead people - you may be surprised what you find; and it probably will not be just about autistic dead relatives. Nowadays, with the internet, and so many people interested in family history hundreds of millions of family trees have already been done. You may just meet cousins you did not know you had and find out a few more family history secrets. Happy tree climbing.
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