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National Doctor’s Day- Is there a Doctor in the House- er, Tree?

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Dr. Edward A. McMurray, probably about 1925 after finishing college.
Dr. Edward A. McMurray, probably about 1925 after finishing college.  (Click to enlarge.)

 

McMurray Family, Helbling Family (Click for Family Tree)

Our Congress really does get important things done… and they really can work together if they try.  Think back to 1990 when, with overwhelming approval, both Congress and the House passed S.J. #366 to declare ‘National Doctor’s Day.’ The bill had just been introduced that year, and Pres. George H.W. Bush signed it in October- less than 10 months from start to finish! Public Law 101-473 thus took effect on March 30, 1991, proclaiming March 30 as a national day to celebrate the contributions of physicians throughout our history.

We do have at least two ancestors who were physicians, and one uncle.

Dr. Edward A. McMurray and his wife Elna Mae Kenner McMurray in the 1939 Newton, Iowa City Directory.
Dr. Edward A. McMurray and his wife Elna Mae Kenner McMurray in the 1939 Newton, Iowa City Directory. His office was in the bank building at that time, and his home was on S 8th Ave. W. (Click to enlarge.)

Dr. Edward A. McMurray

Both of the sons born to William Elmer McMurray and Lynette (Payne) McMurray, Edward A. McMurray (1900-1992) and his brother Herbert C. McMurray (1911-1989), became doctors.

Herbert McMurray, Newton (Iowa) High School Yearbook, 1929.
Herbert McMurray, Newton (Iowa) High School Yearbook, 1929. Herbert was one of only six young men at Newton High to be inducted into the National Athletic Honorary Society. The Society required high academic achievement as well as outstanding athletic work. (Click to enlarge.)

Within the family, Edward was lovingly called, “The Doctor.” He specialized in Ear, Eye, Nose, and Throat problems, after a residency in New York City around 1940. (His son Edward A. McMurray, Jr., remembered going to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City with him one summer during that residency.) Back then, ‘The Doctor’s’ specialty was known as “EENT.” Now that specialty has split- we have opthamologists- doctors who specialize in eyes only, and other doctors called ‘otorhinolaryngologists’ or ENTs, who cover the ear, nose, and throat areas. But Dr. McMurray could do it all, and his out-of-state grandchildren got their annual eye (and ENT) check when visiting him in Iowa!

I have already written a detailed post about the medical career of Dr. E. A. McMurray (1900-1992) in Newton, Iowa- see “Workday Wednesday- Dr. Edward A. McMurray.” His brother Herbert C. McMurray (1911-1989) practiced in the Ballwin, Missouri area.

Dr. John H. O’Brien

If you are a descendant of Gerard William/William Gerard “G. W.” Helbling (1882-1971), then you are also descended from Dr. John H. O’Brien (1808-1887), who was G.W.’s maternal (mother’s) grandfather. Dr. O’Brien was born in Ireland and attended the University of Dublin. A letter to the University has not provided any specific information about him as a student, although there was a Dr. John O’Brien working there as the Librarian of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in 1841. This cannot be the same Dr. John O’Brien, as our known ancestor had immigrated to America in 1831. (Perhaps it was his father or an uncle? O’Brien is a common name in Ireland though so the Librarian may not have been related at all.)

Dr. O’Brien immigrated in 1831, and was in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania by 1832. It was a tough time to be a doctor in western Pennsylvania- a cholera epidemic, spread by contaminated water, was taking place on the frontier.

The inscription on his headstone was very appropriate for a physician:

Blessed is he that understandeth concerning

the needy and the poor, the Lord will deliver

him in the evil day.       -XL Psalm 

Dr. John H. O’Brien- headstone detail (Click to enlarge.)

Dr. O’Brien and his wife Jane (Neel) O’Brien were early settlers of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburbs, and he was a successful doctor in the Pittsburgh area. (He is often listed as “J. H. O’Brien” in directories.) A previous post tells a bit more about Dr. O’Brien and his family: “Tombstone Tuesday- Dr. John H. O’Brien.” We will tell more of the family story in upcoming posts.

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All of these doctors would be amazed at today’s healthcare. Dr. E. A. McMurray, who died in 1992 but had been retired for a number of years, saw the beginnings of this incredible age of medicine.  Dr. O’Brien, however, may have been paid in farm products, especially in his early years in America and while on the frontier, where hard cash was hard to come by. (If memory serves, Dr. McMurray was sometimes paid with goods as well, especially in his early years as a general practitioner in a small town with surrounding rural areas.) The ‘germ theory of disease’ was not fully understood or accepted until at least the 1850s, and really into the 1880s. John Snow wrote his theory of the transmission of cholera in 1849, and mapped cholera epidemics in London in the early 1850s. Not fully accepted even when he stopped the epidemic, it was too late for our Dr. O’Brien to use this information to help stem the disease in Western Pennsylvania. Viruses were discovered in the 1890s, after Dr. O’Brien’s death and just 10 years before Dr. E. A. McMurray was born. Some arsenic-based synthetic antibacterials had been used after 1907 for some diseases, but Dr. McMurray was already through medical school when penicillin was described in 1928; antibiotics were not widely available, however, until after World War II.

From using genetics to determine treatment, to the incredibly complex machines we have available for diagnosis and treatment, to how medical care is paid for (and how insurance companies think they know more about appropriate patient care than a personal doctor), today’s medicine would be astounding to all these learned doctors!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. “Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland for the Year of Our Lord 1841,” p. 151, Ancestry.com.
  2. Tombstone Tuesday- Dr. John H. O’Brien” may be found at http://heritageramblings.net/2014/01/14/tombstone-tuesday-dr-john-h-obrien/
  3. More mentions of these men can be found on our blog by searching for the names “McMurray” or “O’Brien.”
  4. For our younger readers, a brief explanation of our title is probably warranted. In earlier times, if someone got sick in a theater or hotel, the cry, “Is there a doctor in the house??” would go through the audience and hallways in order to get fast medical assistance to the victim. (It became a great comedy routine, too.) There were no cell phones, and even no phones at all, of course, depending on how far back one goes. In fact, calling 9-1-1 for emergency assistance was not instituted in the United States until 1968, and many communities did not have this resource available for its citizens even into the 1980s. (Probably before you were born.)

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.
 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
 
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1) For a blast from the past, watch Schoolhouse Rock: America “I’m Just a Bill.”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFroMQlKiag

Tombstone Tuesday: Ann Elisy (Murrell) Brown

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Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery sign, Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. Used with kind permission of the FAG photographer.

 

Murrell Family, Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Ann Elisy (Murrell) Brown, also known as Anneliza, passed away on 2 May 1892 at the relatively young age of 46.

Anneliza (Murrell) Brown- headstone in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery, Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. Used with kind permission of the FAG photographer. (Click to enlarge.)

Her youngest child was just seven years old; the oldest, 22.

Anneliza (Murrell) Brown- headstone closeup in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery, Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. Used with kind permission of the FAG photographer. (Click to enlarge.)

Her husband Aaron Brown followed her in death just two years later, on 19 March 1894. Their little daughter Edith Brown would have been just nine when she was left without parents. We do not know who the children lived with- we have only been able to find Mary in the 1900 census, and she had married in 1892, the year her mother died. None of her siblings are listed that year with Mary, her husband George Underwood, and their son on the census. (Years later, however, Edith was single and living with them as an adult in Grant County, Minnesota at the 1920 and 1930 census.)

Aaron Brown- headstone in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery, Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. Used with kind permission of the FAG photographer. (Click to enlarge.)

Both Anneliza and Aaron are buried in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery in Jasper County, Iowa, adjacent to the Roberts family’s homeplace settled by Anneliza’s sister Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts and her husband John Roberts. (Interestingly, Elizabeth and John are not buried there, but in Waveland Cemetery in Prairie City.)

Aaron Brown- headstone closeup in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery, Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. Used with kind permission of the FAG photographer. (Click to enlarge.)

Anneliza’s parents, Wiley Anderson Murrell and Mary M. (Honts) Murrell are also buried in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Anneliza (Murrell) Brown– Find A Grave Memorial# 39599402, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39599402
  2. Aaron Brown– Find A Grave Memorial# 39599324, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39599324
  3. The bios on Find A Grave for this couple were a collaboration between this author and the creator of the memorials. We appreciate his work, and his permission to share his photos with family.

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
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Amanuensis Monday: The 1880 Agriculture Schedule for Aaron and Ann Elisy (Murrell) Brown

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1880 US Federal Census Non-Population Schedule for Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa for Aaron Brown, page 9, Line 5. (Click to enlarge.)

Roberts Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

The year 1880 found Ann Elisy Murrell and her husband Aaron Brown, along with their children, in Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. In addition to being on the population schedule (the regular census list), the family was included on the 1880 Agriculture Schedule (AKA ‘Non-Population Schedule’) that listed the details of their farm. They were included in this census just before Wiley Anderson Murrell, Eliza’s father, and her sister’s husband, John Roberts.

In 1880 Aaron Brown owned the land he was farming (probably had a mortgage on it though), however Wiley and John were renting their land. (They were farming on shares- they worked someone else’s land but provided a portion of their crops to the owner in lieu of paying a cash rent.)

An ‘amanuensis’ is one who copies manuscripts, or, in this case, we are using it to mean one who puts into a narrative what is basically a chart (the Ag census)- sort of writing it out to make a bit more sense.

Aaron and Eliza owned 100 acres, a farm slightly smaller than John Roberts’ rented land of 120 acres, and much smaller than Wiley Murrell’s 240 acres of leased land. (But they owned those 100 acres!) The value of Aaron and Eliza’s farm, including land, fences, and buildings, was $1800, and they had $200 worth of implements and machinery to work it. The family had spent $20 on building and repairing the farm during 1879.

The estimated value of all farm production, either sold, consumed by the family, or still on hand, for the previous year was $1300.

The farm had 3 acres of grasslands that were mown to produce 4 tons of hay. This hay would be important fuel for the ‘engines’ of the day- horses and mules. The family owned 5 horses (not all would be the larger work horses) and 2 mules/asses. They did not have any working oxen.

The family had 4 “milch” cows on hand on 1 June 1880. The census lists 3 other “Neat Cattle”- probably beef cows for the family, and maybe including a bull for increasing the herd. Three calves were ‘dropped’ (born) during 1879, and 2 of their cattle were sold living; 1 died, stayed, or was stolen and not recovered. The total value of their livestock was $600.

The ‘milch’ cows were important for making butter as well as the milk that would have been used for drinking and cooking. During 1879, 325 pounds of butter were made on the farm, most likely by Eliza and her daughters. (Only 2 of the 9 farms on that census page had higher butter production.)

The family did not own any sheep, but did have 23 swine (pigs) and 40 poultry birds, with the value of eggs produced in 1879 listed as $160. The pigs were often women’s work, and the poultry would have definitely been taken care of by the women and children- it was a busy life for all on the farm.

Aaron and Eliza’s livestock was worth $600 in total.

The family did not grow barley or buckwheat, but did plant 60 acres in Indian corn, the multi-colored corn that we now see as decorations in fall. This corn is usually preserved by drying (or making hominy in the south). The family farm produced 3,000 bushels of this corn, and 500 bushels of oats on the 20 acres planted; both were probably fed to animals. Four acres planted in rye produced 60 bushels, and 20 acres of wheat yielded 200 bushels. At least some of the wheat would have been milled into flour for the family’s use, if not all. To finish off the family’s needs for baking, 3 acres were planted in sorghum, yielding 500 gallons when pressed of a nutritious and somewhat sweet syrup that would have been used sometimes instead of sugar. They likely sold much of that or traded for other goods at the local general store.

The Ag Schedule also lists 2 acres planted in Irish potatoes (white), yielding 150 bushels to bake, mash, put in good midwestern potato salad, etc.

The Ag Schedule also tells us what they did not grow on the farm: hops, tobacco, sweet potatoes, pulse (beans like soybeans), flax and hemp (both used for fibers and ropes), no broom corn, nor maple sugar/molasses. They also did not have any orchards, grapes/vinyards, nor a ‘market garden’ where they grew produce to sell. (They most assuredly had their own family vegetable garden, however.) They also did not have beehives for honey or wax, and did not sell any forest products.

Obviously, life on a farm was a very full day of work in the field, barn, chicken coop, pigsty, and home.

American farm life may seem easier today with big combines and computerized planting, but a farmer’s life is still a tough one. We need to respect and appreciate our farmers and their families throughout all our history, as they built and fed America, and still do today. Having a secure food supply, by it being produced right here in America, is so important to our county’s safety and security.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. 1880 US Federal Census Non-Population Schedule for Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa for Aaron Brown, page 9, Line 5. Available on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
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Census Sunday: Ann Elisy Murrell and Aaron Brown

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Ann Elisy Murrell, age 5, with her parents in the 1850 US Federal Census taken in Botetourt County, Virginia. (Click to enlarge.)

Roberts Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

Ann Elisy Murrell, sometimes called Eliza or Anneliza, was the youngest child of Wiley Anderson Murrell (1806-1885) and Mary Magdalene Honts (1806-1887). Like her older siblings, she was born in Botetourt County, Virginia, with her ‘natal day’ (an old-timey way of saying ‘birthday’) being 21 December 1845.

Birth record of Ann Elisy Murrell, from Murrell Family Bible. (See previous posts on the Bible.) (Click to enlarge.)

Eliza was just five years old on 4 October 1850 when the census taker was to stopped by their home in District 8, Botetourt County, Virginia to count the inhabitants. He listed her father,Wiley A. Murrell, first, as the head of household, then her mother. Next came the children in order of birth with their sex and ages. The ditto marks on the census extract above indicate Virginia was the birthplace for all the family members. Wiley was listed as a farmer, but no value of real estate was given, so he may have been renting their farm. The mark to the far right indicates that Wiley could not read nor write.

In 1853 the family moved to Warren County, Illinois. So we find Eliza with her parents and brothers William and James in the 1860 census there. All three children had been in attendance at school and her father, Wiley, was listed with $718 in personal estate value- still no real estate, so he was likely renting the land there too.

The quest for land they could own possibly drove Wiley and Mary to migrate further west, to Iowa, in 1868. Eliza’s sister Elizabeth Ann Murrell had married John Roberts, and they all migrated together. We don’t know if Eliza went with them or not, but it appears she may have chosen to stay, or else she took the train back to Roseville. She married on 15 September 1869 in Warren County, Illinois. Her husband, Aaron Brown (1846-1894), had been born in Indiana, but his family moved to Fulton County, Illinois, and then Warren County, where the couple probably met.

Eliza was 24, Aaron 23, when the next census taker found them in Greenbush, Warren County, Illinois, on 3 June 1870. Aaron was noted as a farmer, but with no real estate value listed; his ‘personal estate’ was listed as being worth $300. So Aaron may have been renting the land too. Eliza had gone from being a farmer’s daughter to a farmer’s wife. She had also just become a mother the week before- their son James Brown was enumerated as being “7/365” days old.

Interestingly, Eliza was listed as being born in Kentucky on the 1870 census, although most other records note her birth as Virginia, plus she was found in the 1850 census there. We do know there are errors in the census, and they can be caused by a number of situations, such as the enumerator not speaking directly to the person they are listing, errors in copying, ‘misremembering,’ etc.

James was apparently used to migration since his family had moved a number of times, and Eliza may have missed her parents, especially once she became a parent herself. Perhaps the Murrell and Roberts families had sent back glowing reports of the fertility of the soil, and the cheap land to be had in the west? For whatever reason, James and Eliza decided to move to Iowa. Their move came sometime after the birth of their daughter Mary R. Brown in 1872 and son William A. Brown (possibly named William Anderson after his uncle and grandfather?), born about 1875. They were in Iowa by about 1878, when their son George L. Brown was born in Jasper County, Iowa. Their last child, Edith M. Brown, was born in 1885, in Jasper County as well.

Edith was born just before the 1885 Iowa State Census was taken, as there was no age recorded for her but she was listed. Her mother was listed as “Ann Eliza,” and Aaron, Mary R., William A., and George L. Brown were also listed. They were farming property listed as Twp. 79, Range 20, Section 25, NW ¼ NW ¼.

More to come about the Murrell-Brown family.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. We do need to check land records in the various counties to determine if the Murrells actually owned land in Virginia or Illinois.
  2. Census records as described which can be found on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

 

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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

Friday’s Faces from the Past: Descendants of William A. Murrell and Cordelia Talley

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Ivan MURRELL, possibly circa 1901, Galesburg, Illinois. (Click to enlarge.)

Roberts Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

The week of February 20, 2017, we posted about the brother of our Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, William Anderson Murrell, and his wife Cordelia Talley. Following are some images of their descendants, but how we got those images is very interesting. An Ancestry.com member found them at a flea market in California, and since we have public trees on Ancestry, she was able to send a message to a cousin. Of course the cousin wanted them, so the kind finder sent them on. What great info on the back, too. What a wonderful RAOGK! (Random Act of Genealogical Kindness)

We are hoping that closer family members will find this post so that they can enlighten us with more information on these people.

Ivan MURRELL, possibly circa 1901, reverse.

Ivan Murrell (1899-1982) was the son of Elizabeth’s nephew George Overton Murrell (1872-1951) and Nora B. Cunningham (1875-1958).

William and Cordelia’s daughter Permelia Jane Murrell (1870-1950) married John Calvin Manuel (1865-1950) on 5 June 1889 in Warren County, Illinois. Here are the recently found photos related to that family:

Thomas Manuel and his wife, ‘Aunt’ Molly. (Click to enlarge.)
Thomas Manuel and his wife, ‘Aunt’ Molly, reverse. (Click to enlarge.)

Apparently Thomas would have been Permelia’s brother-in-law? (Please leave us a note if we have this wrong.) The Eva noted is Eva Angeline (Manuel) Mitchell (1906-1990), daughter of John C. and Permelia Jane (Murrell) Manuel.

Ethel Manuel, later Burkett. Possibly taken circa 1910.  (Click to enlarge.)

Ethel Manuel was the second child of Permelia Jane and John Calvin Manuel.

Ethel Manuel, later Burkett- reverse. (Click to enlarge.)

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Family photos kindly provided by a cousin, and a wonderful person who found them in a flea market in California.

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.