Home births 1930's

[LizzieW]

My g.gran had a child when she was 50.  I doubt it was any of her daughters who produced the child, two of the daughters were already married and the eldest already had one illegitimate child who lived with the family, so there would have been no reason to pass another one off as a child of the gran. 

In any case, on photographs as an adult he looked remarkably like the person who was supposed to be his father.  I can't believe the eldest daughter of my g.gran produced a child with her stepfather and the family stuck together and ignored it.  Besides, my gran was old enough at the time of this baby's birth to know whose child it was.

Lizzie

[Nick29]

As I pointed out the figure 4,103 is not comparable to the previous ones, it should be 820. So to say To my reckoning, the period 2000 - 2004 is an increase of 205% over 1946 - 1950 (the "baby boom years"). is not correct it is a decrease of nearly 60%, from 9,985 to 4,103

Stan

I was quite surprised that 200-2004 had surpassed the "baby-boom" years, Stan.  That's what comes of not reading the small print 

[Nick29]

My g.gran had a child when she was 50.  I doubt it was any of her daughters who produced the child, two of the daughters were already married and the eldest already had one illegitimate child who lived with the family, so there would have been no reason to pass another one off as a child of the gran. 

In any case, on photographs as an adult he looked remarkably like the person who was supposed to be his father.  I can't believe the eldest daughter of my g.gran produced a child with her stepfather and the family stuck together and ignored it.  Besides, my gran was old enough at the time of this baby's birth to know whose child it was.

Lizzie

Lizzie, I'm not suggesting that the birth of a child to any woman over 45 is to be automatically assumed to be the child of a daughter - I was only trying to make the point that it did go on, and we will never know for sure how often it happened. What we do know is that illegitimacy brought great shame to families, and that they would go to great lengths to hide it.    My own g. grandmother bore two children when she was 43 and 45 - these were both hers (she was a newly-wed, on her second marriage, after bearing 12 children by her first husband !).

[LizzieW]

My own g. grandmother bore two children when she was 43 and 45 - these were both hers (she was a newly-wed, on her second marriage, after bearing 12 children by her first husband !).

Gosh, she must have been a strong woman.

[Redroger]

Susannah Hudson (1823-1905) had 10 children with her first husband Cartwright Dawson between 1845 and 1860. On his death in 1860 she married my 2XG uncle  William Luffman with whom she had a further three children between 1867 and 1870, being 47 when the youngest was born.
As these events took place before the Married Women's Property Act, this greatly benefitted William who is shown as Agricultural Labourer in the 1851 census, and as Farmer in the 1861, but remember she had 10 children aged 0-15 to care for when Cartwright died, so the rapid remarriage is by no means unusual.

[coombs]

I do have several cases in my tree where a woman has given birth aged 40-47.

[Nick29]

My own g. grandmother bore two children when she was 43 and 45 - these were both hers (she was a newly-wed, on her second marriage, after bearing 12 children by her first husband !).

Gosh, she must have been a strong woman.

She certainly was !   When she married her first husband, he was a widower, and he had 2 children (aged 4 and 1) and she had 12 children with him, and then when he died she married another widower who had 6 children aged between 13 and 21, and she had another 2 with him.  In total, I think 22 children may have called her "mum" 

[Redroger]

Very much a case of Go forth and multiply!