How many ancestors?

[Phoenix]

When Edmund Albert Skillings was born in 1840, he had 11 living ancestors. (and 9 of them lived to be over 80!)

Can anyone beat this?

[ElizabethHerts]

Phoenix, it might take me a while to find the answer to this!

So, if two parents were alive and all four grandparents that would be six people.
I would need 6 great-grandparents to have been alive to beat you.

[Merry]

I haven't got one to beat that yet, but when OH's relative Mary Renyard was born in 1865, on her mother's side (as I don't have her father's tree) she had one parent, two grandparents, four great-grandparents and one 2xg-grandmother, totalling 8 without including any of her father's line, so I think she could be a contender :D

[Phoenix]

Yep, I guess she is probably a contender!

What impressed me about Edmund is the fact that I don't think there were any teenage births. And of course what impressed me from the start is that in 1841 he is living with his grandparents and two of his great grandmothers. Normal for Norfolk!

[Nell]

Hm. In the 1841 census I have 4 generations of Grays. My gt x 4 grandfather with two of his sons, a granddaughter and two of her children. I was very chuffed as the granddaughter's unusual married name enabled me to be sure this was my gt x 4 grandfather and his sister-in-law staying with him too helped to confirm his wife's maiden name.

But generally the grandparents die before or just after the births of the grandchildren. In my tree folk tended to marry later, so there weren't so many children.