RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Davedrave on Sunday 27 March 16 11:56 BST (UK)
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I should think that we are all pretty used by now to hearing the phrase "we are all living longer now" and I'm sure that as a general rule it is true enough. But it did set me to idly wondering what was the longest timespan Rootschat users had found in their family history, covering the period from the birth of a parent to the death of whichever child surived the longest. Clearly this depends upon both the age at which the parent's child was born and the lifespan of the child.
I have one case where the father was baptised in 1697 (allowing for double dating in the record) and the daughter died in 1835, which makes about 138 years give or take a few months.
AMENDED
Sorry, I did mean to say "...and whose child died before the end of the C19th".
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I've got almost 137 and still going!
My aunt's father was born on 3rd July 1879 and his daughter (my aunt) will be 100 in August.
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153 years and onwards ...
My grandfather was born 17 February 1863, one of his children age 90 is still living.
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Much of this depends on the age at which parents have children. 100 years ago families tended to have five or more children, spread over perhaps 16 or twenty years.
When those children had children 70 years ago, the tendency at that stage was to have one child only. That is what happened in my families, anyway.
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That's great! So the 90 year old must have been born when her father was around 63, whilst the 100 year old was born to a younger father and is it probably unlikely that their combined figure will reach 153.
One of my ancestors had his first child at age 58 and five more until he was nearly 70, but none were especially long lived.
Sorry, I've realised that there is something I missed out though:
I mean't to put "child who died before the end of the C19th", so that we can somewhat discount the effects of modern medicine.
(I've now amended the post)
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We should be looking at longest timespan of father and child separately from mother and child. A man could father children into his seventies, perhaps even eighties, whereas a woman is unlikely to bear a child after 50
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We should be looking at longest timespan of father and child separately from mother and child. A man could father children into his seventies, perhaps even eighties, whereas a woman is unlikely to bear a child after 50
I agree from a technical point of view. What really interests me about this topic is the thought that theoretically memories of an event could be passed on across a very long timespan via just one intermediary.
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Much of this depends on the age at which parents have children. 100 years ago families tended to have five or more children, spread over perhaps 16 or twenty years.
When those children had children 70 years ago, the tendency at that stage was to have one child only. That is what happened in my families, anyway.
It certainly depends on age of parent. One of my ancestors had his first child aged 58. His eldest son fathered his first child at 22, young by the standards of this family (in the C18th) and possibly a reaction to having had such an elderly father, who died not long after his last child was born (worn out! ;D).
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As mentioned in another thread, some people suspect that sometimes when a young girl or woman had an illegitimate child, then the girls own parents would take on the baby as their own. One never knows.
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As mentioned in another thread, some people suspect that sometimes when a young girl or woman had an illegitimate child, then the girls own parents would take on the baby as their own. One never knows.
That is always a possibility. The woman in my case was one of the middle children of a man who fathered children at a pretty normal age and died aged 61. She died aged 99 and her birth and death are clearly documented. Two of her brothers died in infancy and teens respectively. One of the things I've found is just how variable lifespans of siblings can be, even discounting infant mortality.
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My grandfather was born in 1828, my father died in 1971, span 143 years. If you include the next generation I am still going here in 2016 aged 76; 3 generations over 188 years and counting. Intend to make the double century.
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As mentioned in another thread, some people suspect that sometimes when a young girl or woman had an illegitimate child, then the girls own parents would take on the baby as their own. One never knows.
Either 19th century women in rural Cambridgeshire had an extremely long reproductive life or more likely there were a lot of teenage age pregnancies hidden by this means. Remember there was no television so that had to do something on a winters' evening! ;)
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This group all died after the introduction of statutory records in Scotland so I'm somewhat confident the ages are correct.
John Thom (1794 - 1869) his daughter Davidina (the youngest in a large family) (1850 -1940) that's 146 years. (Davidina's mother was born in 1807 so 133 if we are looking at mothers). Davidina outlived most of her children but her daughter Mabel lived a good age (1887-1980).
Jen
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My great, great uncle is 97 and his dad was born in 1875. So 141 years.
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My father's cousin Harry was born 1862, his son Claude died aged 110 in 2011, a span of 149 years. Not something I wish to emulate, although with my father born in 1886 there is already a span of 130 years.
Jebber
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My father's cousin Harry was born 1862, his son Claude died aged 110 in 2011, a span of 149 years. Not something I wish to emulate, although with my father born in 1886 there is already a span of 130 years.
Jebber
Impressive! :)
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Wow, 149 years. I can't beat that. My dad is almost 94 now and his father was born in 1874, so a span of 142 years.
I can recall my grandparents talking about the Civil War [their parents' generation had fought in it]. They sparred over whose family had sacrificed more in support of the Union cause.
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Wow, 149 years. I can't beat that. My dad is almost 94 now and his father was born in 1874, so a span of 142 years.
I can recall my grandparents talking about the Civil War [their parents' generation had fought in it]. They sparred over whose family had sacrificed more in support of the Union cause.
That's an impressive span and the personal link to that history in fascinating.
Dave :)
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I have a 7 x great grandfather born in 1663 and his youngest daughter ( my 7 x great aunt) died in 1802 at the age of 98 - 139 years.
Nell
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father born 1789 (died 1830) (3* great grandfather - but his birth date is from the convict records can't back it up by anything else)
son (born 1817) died 1916
so 127 years on my dads side
father born 1808 (died 1869) (my 3* great grandfather)
daughter (born 1867) died 1958 - she was the youngest child of his second marriage, her eldest brother was 27 years older than her
so 150 years on my mums
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Can't rival some of the contributions but gggrtgranfather George Hill of Clifton, Brighouse born 1771 Pogmore, Barnsley ( d. 1862) and his son my ggrtgradfather Francis d. Brighouse 1894. Thought this is rather good going for an ordinary working man.
Am just wondering if the stats. would stretch further if I looked at all Francis's siblings?
On a more somber note, an old school friend passed on last week aged only 67. He was one of three sons, none of whom made it to 70 but both their parents lived well into their nineties. A sad paradox, perhaps.
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Can't rival some of the contributions but gggrtgranfather George Hill of Clifton, Brighouse born 1771 Pogmore, Barnsley ( d. 1862) and his son my ggrtgradfather Francis d. Brighouse 1894. Thought this is rather good going for an ordinary working man.
Am just wondering if the stats. would stretch further if I looked at all Francis's siblings?
On a more somber note, an old school friend passed on last week aged only 67. He was one of three sons, none of whom made it to 70 but both their parents lived well into their nineties. A sad paradox, perhaps.
One thing that seems to be true is that it seems impossible to make generalisations. I've come across a lot of parents in my family tree who outlived their children, or siblings who long outlived other siblings.
My mother's mother lived to be over 90 and her father well into his late 80's. My mother never smoked as much as one cigarette and hardly touched alcohol and she died in her later 60's, yet my grandad drank merrily and smoked almost anything that he could set light to, from about the age of 12! I think that it all depends on how the genes get mixed.
Of course as we go further back we can't know how many rels. died due to short or longer term effects of accident. Also, in my line, two daughters of a fairly wealthy farmer died in their mid-30's of TB (early 1800's) but their mother (in the same household) outlived them to reach 80.
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Yes, TB was the big imponderable.
It was totally unpredictable.
It would take some family members but not others.
My mother's aunt and young cousin died of it in the 1930's but the lady's husband and other daughter were unaffected, as were my grandma who nursed them both up to their deaths.
Given that they were next door neighbours and the kids were constantly in and out of both small houses, it's amazing that no one else fell victim to the TB.
No wonder that it was a secret, much-feared ailment.
My gran lived to 93, all her children were long-lived, except one daughter who died of a heart attack age 59. No other early heart disease in the family.
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My father's mother died of TB (along with several siblings who didn't live in his household). He was 4 when she died and all of the neighbours expected him to follow her. He's over 90 now! Unlike his early C19th farming ancestors, his living conditions were more like those where you'd expect TB to be rife.
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My grandfather b1828 and my father d1971 were both ag labs and later railway workers. Cant get anymore working class than that i think.
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My grandfather b1828 and my father d1971 were both ag labs and later railway workers. Cant get anymore working class than that i think.
They were probably less likely to die from a surfeit of lampreys or an excess of claret than more affluent contemporaries! I think that as long as people avoided ridiculous excesses and accidents, it was mainly down to genetic inheritance. All my forbears who reached 85-90+ were "working class", and even the fairly well-off farmers in my tree would still have worked very hard physically in the pre-mechanical era.
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My grandfather was born 1871, his daughter my aunt is still going strong , so 145+ years
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153 years and onwards ...
My grandfather was born 17 February 1863, one of his children age 90 is still living.
He wasn't affluent so doubt he could afford claret. ;D He had a wife & 7 children to support and worked as a Bakers roundsman and was also a corporation labourer.
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I don't think I can beat anyone else's time-span...
My great-great-grandfather was born about 1820, married his second wife aged 60, and died in 1882. A few months after his death my great-grandmother was born. She died aged 59 in 1952. A span of 132 years.
What's more interesting though is that his first grandchild was born 20 years before his own daughter!
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My grandfather was born in 1860, his youngest daughter ( my mother) by his second wife was born in 1917 and died in 2001 so a span of 141 years.
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Robert was born New Zealand 1866. His youngest son was born New South Wales 1934 (still alive, let's call him Bob 2), and his youngest grandson (so Bob 2's youngest son) was born New South Wales 2005.
Edwin was born England 1849, his youngest son was born New South Wales 1913 (again this chap is still alive, Ted 2) and Ted2's youngest daughter was born via IVF (edit to remove the year, I may be identifying her, there may have been media coverage at the time).
Robert is an ancestor on my paternal side.
Edwin is an ancestor on my maternal side.
My eldest living male relative was born in 1910,
My eldest living female relative was born in 1912,
My husband's eldest living male relative was born in 1909.
My husband's eldest living female relative was born in 1913.
Each of them has provided oral history recordings of their memories including memories of their childhoods, spent in rural NSW. ..... The first motorcar to arrive in their towns, the first telephone, the first house to get electric light, the first wood chip hot water heater INSIDE the house, the ice chest, the kerosene fridge, interspring mattress, sharing shoes to go to school, being allowed to use a fountain pen to write a letter on fresh paper to a Great Grandmother celebrating her own Centenary....
speaking at age 90, about remembering the importance of sitting on the knees of a Great Aunt who had sat on the knees of her Uncle who had built by his own hands in 1810 at The Rocks, Sydney Cove, NSW and how she stressed the importance of remembering her origins.
Cheers, JM
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I think Rosie's reply (No.27) holds the record at 153 years.
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My 4xgreat grandfather was born 1777, his granddaughter born in 1877, and she lived to 1955, she died aged 78. 178 years.
As said my longest timespan between parent and child is 141 years.
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My 4xgreat grandfather was born 1777, his granddaughter born in 1877, and she lived to 1955, she died aged 78. 178 years.
As said my longest timespan between parent and child is 141 years.
My aunt's grandfather was born 1831 and my aunt is still alive at almost 100, so that's 184 years!
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My Aunt's grandfather was born in 1884 and her grandmother in 1888, there now only surviving child was born in 1911 and is alive and kicking and 105 this year. Not quite as long as other's but not doing badly at 132 years this year. My Aunt's mother who was one of their younger children died in 2013 at the age of 96.
On my directline my grandmother died in 1996 and her mother, my great grandmother, had been born in 1870, so 126 years. My great grandfather was 12 years younger than his wife and both were single when they married in 1902. ;D
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"My aunt's grandfather was born 1831 and my aunt is still alive at almost 100, so that's 184 years!"
My dad is almost 94 now. His grandfather was born in 1833 and immigrated to the US in 1834.
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153 years and onwards ...
My grandfather was born 17 February 1863, one of his children age 90 is still living.
His father was born c1818 (age 23 on 1841 census - baptised with the rest of his siblings in 1830) My grandfather was his youngest child. That is around 198 years ;D
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My paternal grandfather was born in January 1836, so that is 180 years to date.
Having been just given a clean bill of health at 74 and two weeks, so I reckon I probably have a few years left in me yet. ;D ;D ;D
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My great-aunt died in 2006 and her grandfather (long-dead by the time she was born) was born around 1820.
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My 3x great grandfather was born in 1807. He married at 19and had his first child when he was 20 (and my 2x great grandfather in 1830 when he was 22).
He went on to have 24 children with 2 wives - the last child born in 1882 when he was 75 and his second much younger wife was 42.
That last daughter lived to be 87, and died in 1970.
The father was born in 1807 and the daughter died in 1970. A span of 163 years.
According to family lore there was no doubt in the family that they were all his children.
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My mother in law's cousin's husband was born in 1919, his father on Boxing Day 1869, so the span is presently 147+ years.
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My great grandfather was born 1798; my grandfather 1828, my father 1899, me 1940, so that's 219 years and counting for 4 generations.My 2x great grandfather was born 1776, probably illegitimate, but I haven't yet managed to knock that brickwall down.