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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Peterjay on Tuesday 08 February 11 20:12 GMT (UK)

Title: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Peterjay on Tuesday 08 February 11 20:12 GMT (UK)
Hi,
Would be interesting to know the greatest amount of children born to one couple, I have a couple with 16 kids, can anyone beat it.
Peter.
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: jane l on Tuesday 08 February 11 20:16 GMT (UK)
yep i can 20  ;D
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: genjen on Tuesday 08 February 11 20:20 GMT (UK)
Twenty-two!

And the mother lived to a ripe old age.

Jen ;D
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Lloydy on Tuesday 08 February 11 21:04 GMT (UK)

19 for one couple

17 for another - all born in New Zealand, all documented and I'm sure you can imagine how many descendents there are.....been in contact with several :)

Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Alexander. on Tuesday 08 February 11 21:19 GMT (UK)
Wow, but did they all survive? The most I have on my tree is 16 to one couple, but nine of the children died in infancy, so there aren't actually that many descendants.
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Lloydy on Tuesday 08 February 11 21:35 GMT (UK)
In my New Zealand family of 17 children, 2 died in infancy while all the others lived well into adulthood.  Their father was from a family of 14!!!

What a huge Christmas card list ;D
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: AnneMc on Tuesday 08 February 11 22:20 GMT (UK)
My hubby lived next door to a family of 22 children  on one side and on the other side a family of 19. This is in Quebec.

Cheers
Anne
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: genjen on Tuesday 08 February 11 22:36 GMT (UK)
Wow, but did they all survive?

I'd need to be looking at my tree to be sure but I believe all but one or two of my family of twenty-two survived into adulthood.

I'm not on my own computer tonight but will check when I get home.

Jen
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Little Nell on Tuesday 08 February 11 22:43 GMT (UK)
Thirty-two, apparently, although I've only found proper documentary evidence for 21.  And for the record the mother of all those children outlived the father by some 14 years.  He was 80 when he died, but I don't know her age.  The figure of thirty-two comes from several biographical sources, but I suppose they might all be based on the same original.

Nell
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: aspin on Tuesday 08 February 11 22:53 GMT (UK)
My grandfather was one of 16 the first baby born 1878 and the last 1900
Poor woman must have been pregnant for about 22 years
Elizabeth
By the way they didn't all live
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Gaille on Wednesday 09 February 11 00:44 GMT (UK)
My gt-gt-grandma had 16 children ......... including THREE sets of male/Female twins!

I think she may have had more children because there are 'gaps' in the birth pattern, but I havent found any evidence yet.

Gaille
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: deebel on Wednesday 09 February 11 00:52 GMT (UK)
Hi,
Would be interesting to know the greatest amount of children born to one couple, I have a couple with 16 kids, can anyone beat it.
Peter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodor_Vassilyev

Apparently his wife holds the record
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Lloydy on Wednesday 09 February 11 11:14 GMT (UK)

 :o :o :o :o :o :o  ;D
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Cell on Wednesday 09 February 11 12:50 GMT (UK)
 Hi,
I have ( well hubby's maternal line,  his g ,g grandparents) 13  children  (with no twins amongst them) who survived to adulthood. 
 I don't know if there were any still births  so the figure may be very slightly  higher than that, we'll never know .  They lived in a  terraced house with just  two bedrooms - the mind boggles at the the liviing conditions.

 The woman deserved a gold medal , or her hubby should have put a sock on it( I don't know which ;D)   Maybe it was all the oysters that  they ate ( he was an oysterdredger)  I guess  it was one of the main foods  in their household (ladies stay away from oysters! )

Poor woman, rather her than me . There couldn't have been a year gone when she was not pregnant  ( needless to say she  died  before her  husband )

Kind regards
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Rishile on Wednesday 09 February 11 14:59 GMT (UK)
There were sixteen children born to one couple in my family.  One of those children went on to have 16 children too.  Unfortuntely they do not lead to many descendents as some died young, others didn't appear to marry or had no children.
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Sharon01 on Wednesday 09 February 11 16:17 GMT (UK)
My gg grandmother had 17 of which 7 died and her daughter my g grandmother had 12 of which 10 survived into adulthood.

Sharon
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Lal on Wednesday 23 February 11 00:37 GMT (UK)
The photo on the left here is of my great-great-grandparents Enoch and Hannah (and a few of their children and a grandchild) who had 13 children and lived in a four room cottage - all of them grew up and most of them had more children of their own! Hannah was having children between the ages of 17 and 43 - no twins - and lived to her 80s. Two of their daughters had families of 8 and 11. The odd thing is that only one of their sons had children!

Enoch was one of 11 children, and his brother Mark also had 11 children, but sadly not all of Mark's lived, and I suspect TB got some of them going by their ages :(

I've also found that Hannah's grandfather had 10 children. Out of these, Hannah's aunts and uncles, there were two families of ten, one of none, and one of fourteen.

I'm not even finished with looking them all up, either, which is good as they fascinate me. It must have been all the good, fresh air out around Martin Mere ;)

Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: coombs on Wednesday 23 February 11 14:07 GMT (UK)
I know a wife of an ancestors brother who had 14 children. One set of twins.
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: busylizzie123 on Wednesday 23 February 11 16:01 GMT (UK)
My G G Grandmother Sarah Ledson was 88 when she died of ‘paraplexy’ at Woodyard on 5 June 1852: according to the
Liverpool Mercury she left ‘13 children, 91 grandchildren and 108 great-grandchildren’.

So still trying to find out if she had more than 13 children and did any die, wonder if she could remember all their names? ;D
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: fredthompson on Monday 07 March 11 00:52 GMT (UK)
My Great Grandfather  11 children of which 7 survived to adult hood 1st born in scotland in oct 1874 last born 13 feb 1902 all to the same wife and his brother had 16 at minmi in NSW unfortunately on 6 survived to adult hood
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Seoras on Monday 07 March 11 13:06 GMT (UK)
Wow,lots of mine have 10 and I thought that was a lot.Reading some of these I realise they were almost celibate ;D

George.
Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: traceypat on Monday 07 March 11 13:38 GMT (UK)
What fastinates me is how small the houses were and  how many children lived there.  Where I was born we had a small house that held us four (2 kids 2 parents) and that was OK but I was told Mrs E down the road had 8 children in there. How!   Top n Tail in bed I was told. When one of the eldest was getting married they were so excited as it meant more bed for the rest.

Title: Re: What's your highest number of children born to a couple
Post by: Lal on Monday 07 March 11 16:05 GMT (UK)
My family of 13 were born between 1868 and 1894, and there was no point when they all lived in the house at the same time. When they got to about 12 they all seem to have gone to 'live out' and work as farm servants and labourers, though none of them went very far, at most a mile or two from home. And I understand the old cottage was surrounded by all kinds of outbuildings and sheds so no doubt there was room to go off and sit on your own. They probably had a relaxed attitude to the idea of 'privacy' anyway - their numbers kept being added to by the extra babies that some of the girls produced!