General Chat

Oops. Looks like I kicked off a bun fight. Many thanks both for seeing past the 1 - infinity types and putting some figures to paper.

I have an 'in' famous relative to the tune of 5 x Grandfather. Despite the curious joy of that I'd always scoffed that at least a few 100 or so other people can lay same claim. I'll rethink that to more like 2million. Darn - bang goes the party line.

J

I am only using assumptions to get a broad picture.

But in any case, it doesn't "put the average up". An average is just that, a median taken from a large sample. For every one with 42 children, there will be thousands with less, so the average will be reduced.

To get a ball-park figure you could start by assuming that a generation is 30 years and that in Victorian times there would be six children who lived to breed, reducing through Edwardian times to four, then down to three, with a further reduction for war casualties.

On that basis someone born in 1830 would have a maximum of six children averaged in 1860, thirty six grandchildren averaged in 1890, one hundred and forty four great grandchildren averaged in 1920, four hundred and thirty two gg grandchildren averaged in 1950 and around 800 ggg grandchildren averaged in 1980.

Knock off between 10 and 15% for war casualties and accidents and the 1920 figure comes down to (say) 125, 1950 to 330 and 1980 to 600 or so.

Indeed not what I was expecting - or was it?!

Surely there must be a child range per generation reflecting the average of the time and prevailing conditions. Obviously its not precise.

Surely someone whose found an 'oooohh' ancestor wondered how many others theoretically could say same?

Surely someone - anyone - can beat ...oh its somewhere between 1 and 1,000,000,000 !

J

How long is a piece of string?

It all depends on how many children each generation in your family had. If they all only had one child then it wouldn't be too many. Then again if they all had 10 to 14 children (as some of mine did) then there could be hundreds.

Not the answer you wanted I'm sure. Sorry.

Kath. x

There isn't a ballpark figure for this one. As you are alive it has to greater than or equal to 1 - that's the best you can do. It depends on how many children there were in each generation and how well they bred!

Think of a number!!

Could someone give me a reasonable guesstimate as to how many people can lay claim to the same 4,5 ,6 x GGrandparents as mine !

I now - daft and needs loads of fudge and rounding up but I'd like a ballpark.

Cheers
J