Hi, Everyone,
I have always known that in my grandfather John Charles SHERWOOD's generation, his mother produced NINE consecutive sons between 1878 and 1897 in Eastbourne, before the first daughter arrived.
Now, doing some research for a friend in the village of Ickleton, Cambs, where my mother's family originate from, I have come across a sequence of EIGHT straight births of BAYNES sons to the same couple between 1878 and 1891 before, at last, a daughter appears.
Does the mathematics of this defy belief, or is there usually some kind of genetic reason for such a sequence? Anyway, this might give people a forum to air other, even more astonishing statistics on this subject concerning their own families.
Or was there just something odd in the drinking water between 1878 and the 1890's...?
Very best wishes,
Keith