Genealogy Chat

Just thinking about how many children my ancestors had. Average is about 8 . The most I have from one mother is 12. I am sure somebody must be able to beat that!

Well in my Lowe line, a couple had 16 children!!! Sadly only 3 made it to adulthood. The others died within the first year or two of life. Tragic......

One of my lot had 16 . all survived , well at least till the 1901 census how did they cope? Cath

Cant beat it but can match, my Dads youngest one of twelve and has 2 sisters and 1 brother left.

I can't compete - none of mine (as far as I've discovered) had more than 9. I think I recall Olde Crone mentioning that two of her rellies had 102 grandchildren.

15 (2 boys, 13 girls!) , of which at least 12 made it through to marry & have families of their own! This was mid-1800s. Angela

my grt grans younger bro fathered twenty one children by two wives. Shirley

I don't think any of mine had VERY large numbers...... My granny had 14 which was a lot for the 20th century..... A friend's ancestor had her first 12 in 12 years (all singletons) and then another three or four more gently spaced!! I have looked up this lady, below, on the census: Mrs. Mary Jonas (d. 1899) had 15 sets of boy/girl twins........ Merry

my great great great grandparents had 16 children all but 1 lived to adulthood and the mum lived to 83 years old herself, she died in 1903. Tammy :~)

My great grandma had 21 children. So far I have found 14 that lived past 18 years old. Jayne

hi my father is one of 16, and there are still 7 of em about! (himself included)

The record stands at 21 !! I am so glad i was born in the 1960's and not the 1860's.

My 7 x GGPs had 14 children. I was collecting the various baptisms etc, rather haphazardly over several weeks and it was only when I sat down to enter them all on my tree that I realised the awful truth. In 1733, when this couple already had 5 children and she was expecting her sixth, all five children died in the space of 29 days, of smallpox. Later that year she gave birth to her sixth child, a boy, who was buried 3 days after his birth. I wonder how significant it is that this couple did not have any more children for four years? They later had another nine children. I cannot imagine that they were anything other than distraught to lose their whole family in less than a month. What I thought was most poignant was that the eldest, a girl of ten, was the last to die. She probably helped her mother with the sick children, and at 10, was probably a friend to her mother, too. Olde Crone

Old Crone, Thats very sad. i also found a relative of hubbys who lost 5 children within 3 weeks. I stood in the cemetery looking at the headstone(can only assume the parish must have paid for that) trying to understand how that must have affected them. Not got round to getting death certificates yet (They are on my must have list) They also left a small respectable gap then had a further 2 children. Some of these women must have been amazingly strong.

I've got one with 16 with the same parents. All children survived as far as I know. I also have one man had 21 children with 3 wives. I can't remember if they all survived though. I think there are a couple of families out there with 23 to one couple, but I can't remember who they belong to.

My fourth great grandmother had 17 children and practically all of them survived to a reasonable age. She died in 1865 at 83. I find this incredible when I think of how many women in the early 1800s died through childbirth...and she had 17 chances! However, she lived in a tiny Somerset village; none of my London rellies fared so well.

Apparently the world record is 69, to a Russian peasant and his (one) wife in the mid-1700s. Blimey.

Hi My Mum was one of 16, 12 girls and 4 boys. None of the boys married so the family name didn't carry on. My Gran was 93 when she died and my Grandad 84. She married at 17 had her first child at 18 and her last 45.All those years being pregnant !!!!. Needless to say three was enough for me. Cheryl

My Great Great Gran had 22. Made up of 10 sets of twins and 2 single births. I bet she thought she was having an easy day on the days she only had one baby.LOL Dianne xx

23 Children between 1882 and 1911. Lived with the in-laws in a 2 bedroom terrace. All single births and of course many died.