Why things might have happened - Genealogists' Forum

Phoenix · #1 03-10-22, 08:30

It always puzzled me why, in an age of notoriously large families, Great Granny Skillings had only one sister.

I've been looking back at her family, and realise that her mother had FOURTEEN known siblings. Baby, after baby after baby died and her mother only had three brothers who grew to adulthood.

Now, there may have been stillbirths, or natural reasons her parents had so small a family, but I can't help feeling that the sight of her exhausted mother burying yet another infant must have suggested to Great Great Granny that she practice whatever birth control might be available.

Have you come across te possible answers to tings that always puzzled you?

kiterunner · #2 03-10-22, 08:50

I always (since I started doing my family history) wondered why my 2xg-grandparents only had two children, (both girls), and when I discovered a couple of years ago from my DNA testing that my great-grandmother's bio father was someone else I think that explained it.

Phoenix · #3 03-10-22, 09:13

I have got DNA links, admittedly low, to the next generation.

Olde Crone · #4 03-10-22, 10:32

My great grandparents had only one child. Great grandma had a weak heart "and the doctor DARED her to have any more" so she didn't. I don't know how they managed it, but they were devoted to each other (to the point that their son felt left out) and great grandad never remarried after her death, preferring nearly 30 years of widowerhood.

Further back, in the mid 1700s, my umpty ggm had a total of 19 children. Nearly all died of smallpox, only three survived to adulthood and only one had any children. Ggm outlived them all. She was a farmer's daughter and I imagine she had a natural immunity to smallpox, her husband and children didn't. The only child who went on to have children, had only two, whether by intent I shall never know.

OC

Merry · #5 03-10-22, 10:59

My great grandparents had two children in quick succession after their marriage (1884), then a gap of about 10 years and then another two. I know from my great-aunt (the youngest) that she was a deliberate pregnancy after her next older brother was an accident, so presumably two children had been the original intention. (I don't know how they went about not having any for ten years, but I do know they shared a bed, thanks to a story about cough medicine...

). My great-grandmother had only one sibling as her parents were older when they married. I did wonder if she felt she benefited from this and that's why she only wanted a small family. If there was any planning it would have been my great-grandmother's wishes and not necessarily her husband's as she completely ruled over him!!

I do wonder about rhesus disease when there are just one or two children and then a large number of babies that only lived a very short time.

Phoenix · #6 03-10-22, 13:34

My poor great great grandmother was obviously in and out of the workhouse on a regular basis in the 1830s and 1840s. Said workhouse was about fifteen miles from the village, and the paupers had to walk there to claim relief. Her brother in law refused to let his wife make the journey when she was heavily pregnant, but I don't think my great great grandfather had the same qualms.

KiwiChris · #7 04-10-22, 04:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merry

I do wonder about rhesus disease when there are just one or two children and then a large number of babies that only lived a very short time.

I think that rhesus disease would very much be the reason for small families and neonatal deaths. I can remember in my laboratory working life when babies died of rhesus disease before or just after birth, or having to rapidly organise blood for an exchange transfusion.

The administration of the anti D injection to stop it happening only began about the time I started work, so the late 1960s.

So when I see a small family, it is the first thing that I think of.

Phoenix · #8 04-10-22, 06:45

While some of the children died shortly after birth , quite a few were 18 months or more suggesting that the mother could not cope with two babies at a time.
Poverty was so endemic in the village that many young people took assisted migration to Canada.

Merry · #9 04-10-22, 07:22

Quote:

The administration of the anti D injection to stop it happening only began about the time I started work, so the late 1960s.

Google tells me 1968 for the UK. I was born in 1964 and this issue was something talked about to my mum as she was Rh- and my father Rh+. Of course I was her first and only child and it turned out I was Rh- too, so no issues for us.

However, my OH is Rh+ so I remember having my shots!

Merry · #10 04-10-22, 07:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix

While some of the children died shortly after birth , quite a few were 18 months or more suggesting that the mother could not cope with two babies at a time.

I hadn't been awake long when I read that and thought you were implying murder, rather than malnutrition or similar.

I do find it interesting when PRs list the presumed cause of deaths.