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-   -   So sad (http://genealogistsforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=28398)

Kit 19-01-20 22:04

So sad
 
I'm not yet a week into my "lets kill off the undead" in my tree and it is so depressing.

I'm up to the B's. The family I'm looking at now had 13 children according to the 1911 census, of which only 4 had survived.

I had high hopes for one daughter, she "escaped" and got married in 1900. However by the 1901 census her husband was a widower. Lucy and her daughter died just after birth.

The family are complicated as Dad was illegitimate and he can't make up his mind whether to use his mother or father's surname for both him or his kids and both surnames have a heap of different spelling options just to make it more fun. They also had a 21yo daughter appear on the 1901 census and she too must have been illegitimate and so there are 3 names she might have been born under and I can't find any for the registration district she should have been registered at.

oh the joys of this hobby of ours.

kiterunner 19-01-20 23:55

One of the side branches I have added to my tree recently is my 1st cousin 5 times removed, Calvin Columbus Evans 1818 -1883. He and his wife Jane Turbefield had 16 children, and I have found death dates for 9 of them dying in infancy, another two must have died young as there was another one of the same name a few years later, and another doesn't appear on the censuses so I guess she died young too; only 4 of the 16 seem to have made it to adulthood.

Olde Crone 20-01-20 09:22

I have Martha Lawton who had 19 children in 25 years. The first six died within 3 weeks of each other, of smallpox. The family seem to be the only ones in the village to die of smallpox. She then had 13 more children, only 3 survived to adulthood. Of those 3, one died childless, one vanishes from the records and I am descended from the other one, who only had one child. Martha was a widow for 40 years and outlived them all, dying at 84.

OC

kiterunner 20-01-20 09:52

It's so awful.

Kit 20-01-20 11:27

So much heartbreak.

Kate having a second child of the same name may not mean the first died. My mystery eldest child had the same name, Mary, as one of her sister's who also appeared on the same census as her.

Oakum Picker 20-01-20 13:23

My 6xg-gps had 16 children of whom 6 survived to adulthood including a triplet. Only one died the same year as baptised even the other 2 triplets lasted a little while. The parents lived to their early & late 70s & only their last child & 4th Ann lived longer.

kiterunner 20-01-20 14:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kit (Post 366994)
So much heartbreak.

Kate having a second child of the same name may not mean the first died. My mystery eldest child had the same name, Mary, as one of her sister's who also appeared on the same census as her.

I know, OC, but I haven't found any evidence of those two surviving.

Lindsay 21-01-20 12:08

Conversely, I have a man who worked as a dustman and scavenger in the poorest parts of the east end of London, whose wife had 16 children. At least 15 made it to adulthood - one just vanishes. Contemporaries commented that the children of dustmen were known to enjoy good health.

In fact my man made a fortune and died wealthy, but the family lived for decades in notoriously filthy and overcrowded streets, with 'dust heaps' as tall as the houses in their back yard.

There doesn't seem to be any logic to it - I have plenty of reasonably comfortably-off families who buried more than half their children.

Olde Crone 21-01-20 12:17

Lindsay

Strong genes and a well developed immune system. My wide family, all country dwellers before 1850, had enormous families who generally lived to a good old age barring the odd accident. As soon as they moved into the cities, they died off, usually of tb or childbirth fever, neither of which had claimed any lives before.

OC

Lindsay 21-01-20 15:35

TB was a dreadful disease. It must have been awful to get your children through the difficult early years, only to see them succumb to TB in adulthood.


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