RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Comosus on Wednesday 29 March 06 23:21 BST (UK)
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What's the largest family you have on your tree?
My Great Grandparents seem to have so many siblings.
11 children of one of my GG Grandparents, but there's room for at least another 3 or 4 and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more
11 for another of my GG Grandparents
10 for another of my GG Grandparents
9 for another of my GG Grandparents
8 for another of my GG Grandparents
Was there something in the water at the turn of the 20th century or something? ;D
Andrew
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Hi Andy
It was a mixture of things -
Continued inadequate/non-existent birth control
Improved hygiene and sanitation
Better food
Gadget
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Yeah, sadly though the older ones would have ended up in WW1 :( I don't know the exact number for the siblings of my G Grandparents though because they stretch past the 1901 census. It will probably be 2022 before I can name all of them.
I have a set of GGGG Grandparents who had 7 girls and no boys, can anyone top that? :P
Andrew
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One of my great grandfathers had 15 chidren by two wives, all survived except one.
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Hi All,
One of my Gt Grandparents was one of 13 children and all had the same mother and father and born between 1862 and 1881!! (Having 13 children in 19 years is a lot, it seems the mother was pregnant for most of that period!!)
Regards,
David
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My GGG grandparents had 13 and about 8 survived to adulthood. Two I am still not sure about. A GGG uncle had 17 from 2 marriages. Incredible!!
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Thank goodness for television!
meles
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Feeding them all must have been a nightmare, or in reality they probably couldnt. My GGG grandmother was 46 when she died and I am suprised she lived as long as that. As you say meles, thank goodness for television.
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Gosh Linmey,
That must surely be a record, do you know if they all survived? I wonder if anyone can top that? not surprising a lot of the women died young.
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My gt gt grandparent's had 16, gt gt grandad was only an ag lab.
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Must have been all that fresh air Sue.!!!!!!!
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My husband's aunt,on a farm in Co Clare Ireland,had 12 children from the 1940s to the 60's.Thank goodness her sister,my mother in law,moved to England .She ONLY had 5. ;D
Carol
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I can't top those births, but my GG Grandmother had 10 children to my knowledge, 3 girls and 7 boys between 1860 and 1886, and enough gaps to add a few more.
Lucky the didn't have RootsChat there wouldn't be enough time! ;D
Pipkim
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How true !!!
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My great great great grandmother had 13 children between 1837 and 1860. Of the 7 boys, there is only one that I haven't traced to adulthood but the girls are proving harder to find (because of not knowing who they married - yet).
She was the wife of a farm worker, but it seems to have taken its toll on her as she died in her 40s.
Wotty
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Hi
Always remember my grandad telling me about his sister who was born in 1884
having 25 children, he says he would go round with half a crown and come away with nothing. Always found this hard to believe but my mum backed it up.
All I can say if this was true is WOW :-[ poor women and I cant wait for the next census to check all out.
Mimosa
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Well some would be born after the 1921 census :o
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In my husbands line he has a Martha De Gilbert(b 1737-38) and Capt William Henry Guyon who had 20 children, what surprised me that having called a boy John, when he died they recycled the name !!! No wonder we get confused !
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The family with the 7 girls, no boys I mentioned earlier... Here are their names:
Mabel
Mary Jane
Jane
Eliza
Mary Ann
Elizabeth
Charlotte
...and none of them died young. You'd think they'd be able to come up with more names - They just regurgitate Mary, Jane and Eliza(beth) ::)
Andrew
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My Grandfather was the youngest of 11 children born between 1894 and 1913 and his mother lived to be 81
My grandmother was the youngest of 9 born between1892 and 1910 and her mother lived to be 77
On my Mum's side, my Great grandfather had 13 children 3 to first wife who died young and then 10 to second wife who died aged 91 !!!
My mother in law was 4th of 11 between 1921 and 1936 but her mother died at 51
Hubby's Grandad was eldest of 11 between 1876 and 1892 and his mother's siblings all had families ranging from 6 to 13 children. The 13 were from the same set of parents and she died at 75 and he died at 73
How did they manage to keep living so long???? With all the worry of where the next meal was coming from or clothes I would have been gone well before now I think
Carol
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My great grandfather was one of 15 children....5 girls and 10 boys. All but one lived into adulthood and some of them lived to be well over 90.
Mary.
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My nana, born 1916, was the youngest of 21 :o. The oldest, born 1889, was the only boy and there were no multiple births. They were all to the same parents and great gran lived to her nineties, grt grandad died much earlier :-\
Admittedly only 11 grew to adulthood, but ...gosh! Trouble is it's quite a common name and so I having trouble tracking all the children, but I have no reason to doubt it is true, quite the opposite!
What's strange though is that most of the children either didn't or couldn't have many or any children of their own. In fact the oldest wanted to adopt my nan!
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Wow...do you have Irish Ancestry??? I remember when I was growing up there were several families in my home town exceeding 25....AND no multiple births!!!
Also in my home town were a family who started with a daughter, then 10 months later had identical twin sons and 10 months after that had identical twin daughters. Imagine 5 babies and the oldest only 20 months!!! There were 2 more single births in that family.
Mary.
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My family not that large but my dad was the eldest of eight, two dogs and two lodgers plus the mum and dad, all in a 3 bedroom house,
as my dad used to say - first one got the socks!!! And he always did, been the eldest, Gran used to make him his dish for tea and the rest of the family got a large pot to share, but no one but no one touched John's tea!!
good rooting :D
Jane
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When I was a teenager I used to go on at my Dad about his table manners (it was like eating at a trough sometimes) until eventually my mum took me to one side and told me that there had been 5 kids and 4 adults in his childhood home and never enough to eat and that he just couldn't get out of the habit of eating as fast as humanly possible in the vain hope that there might be some scrapings left in the bottom of the pot!
Wotty.
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I take my hat off to GG George on our left, Rumour has it of 21, but am only able to find 16 for definate - one of who I am led to believe is still alive today.
First one was my grandfather Leonard, born 1892 After which we have
Harriet 1894
George and Geoffrey 1897
Joseph 1900
Isabella 1901
Annie and William 1902
Jack 1906
Maria 1907
Francis 1908
Chris 1909
Hannah 1911
Albert 1912
Herbert 1915
May 1921
Denn
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My g-g grandparents had 16. I have found 12, and I don't think I will find the other four as they died in infancy. I got the details from a headstone picture someone sent me which mentioned 6 babies who died in infancy. Including the babies, ten died before marriage.
Nina
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Brilliant picture Denn
Those poor parents look so tired and no wonder with all those children to feed and clothe
Carol
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Its nice to see George with his family. Really lovely picture Denn!
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I agree - it shows so many family members. Are there a few grandchildren there too?
Andrew
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The two youngest were the children of Leonard. while the lady with the shawl I believe to have been a family friend called Daisy. The picture was presumably taken around the outbreak of the great war, so there were several children yet to come.
A close look at Daisy, suggests that she was considerably older than everyone else, yet she went on to marry George jr born 1897.
Denn
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My 5x grandparents had 18 children. Only 3 died in childhood.
Of the remaining 15:
1 had 2 children
1 had 3 children
2 had 8 children
1 had 9 children
1 had 10 children
1 had 17 children
2 of the 15 never married, and I've not yet been able to trace the whereabouts of the other 6.
That makes a total of 49 grandchildren traced to date.
However, of the descendants of the progenitors, I have managed to locate 32 who are of my generation (my brother and I count for 2 of them).
Looks like I've got my work cut out tracing the other descendants.
D
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Looks like you have a full time job for life D!!
Mary.
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My grandmother always told me she was one of 13 girls including two sets of twins...but I've only found 9 of them so far!
Jill
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Looks like I've got my work cut out tracing the other descendants.
D
I would say you have as well D !!
Sooner you than me lol
Carol
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There's a family on my tree (my GGG Grandmother's 2nd marriage's daughter's husband). He was born 1852 and had 10 children to his first wife, then married again to my GGG Grandmother's daughter (she was 17 and he was 43) and had a further 7 children.
The first child was born in 1875 and the last was born in 1914. So the eldest was 39 years older - old enough to be a grandparent at the time of her (half)brother's birth. That seems really weird.
Andrew
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It used to be quite commonplace here in Ireland for nieces and nephews to be older than their aunts and uncles. I knew several instances where mothers and older daughters were in the maternity ward at the same time and had babies within days of each other.
Mary.
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My convict had something like 27 children to three different wives (he kept wearing them out ;)). Though I think only 17 reached adulthood.
His first child was born in 1805, and the last one in the 1840's (the last surviving child was born in 1840)
I feel tired just thinking about it ;D
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In the Bay of Islands NZ a brother and sister arrived here with their parents in 1814.
The brother had 11 children born between 1817 and 1834. They all lived to a great age.
The sister had 12 children born between 1813 and 1837. Their first child was born in NSW, but all the rest were born in NZ. 2 chilren died at aged 3 and 1 baby at 10 days old. :(
The brother is Gt, Gt, Gt, Gt, Grand father of my children. :D
Gem
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Going back to gr gr gr grandparents it's usually about 7 children.
My great nan however was one of 13 (i have only been able to find 9 mind). I know that my great great gandad was one of...7, i think, and in 1881, his next door neighbour was his uncle and his uncles family, which was i think 8 kids?
My nan was only one of 5, but her father died young. My moms father (who died when she was only 2) was one of 7 but only a few survived.
My dad (who comes from Ireland) was one of 7. His sister has had 13 children, and between them she has over 60 grandchildren, and 6 great grandchildren!
Me - I am one of 10 children, number 8 actually. The eldest born in 1967, the youngest born in 1993. :) Nowadays I know that when I tell somebody that I have 9 brothers and sister, the reaction I get is along the lines of. :o
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I have quite a few families with 12 or 13 kids..........I wouldn't even want to imagine coping with that many :o
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My grandfather, who died a year ago, was one of 15 (13 to adulthood). Ggrandmother only stopped having them when her husband died! Although she did remarry not long later - the man must have been either an idiot or a saint!!
The husband of the above story (my Ggrandfather) was one of 23. First wife had 18 (can only find 16 registered births, but sheesh, that's enough) and when she died, GGgrandfather immediately remarried and the poor second wife, in addition to looking after 16-18 stepkids, had 5 of her own in 6 years and then she dropped dead too.
GGgrandfather of the above story was one of about 12. Most of his siblings that I have traced had 11-13 children.
Don't know how many sibs GGGgrandfather had, but judging by the amount of people with the same surname in the area he came from (Wilde's in Manchester), it was probably a hell of a lot!
Funnily enough my father is an only child.
Kez :)