Question of the Week: What's the largest family you've found in your tree? [closed]

Question

What is the largest family group you've found in your genealogy research? Tell us about them with an answer below! You could also answer on Facebook or share the question image on your social media to get your family and friends talking.

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19 three of four of them didn't live though

Answer 1

17 kids. All living :-)

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Girard-733

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Now that's a whopping huge family, Carl! I'd call that "family name insurance."

Answer 2

This is a photo of my second great grandfather Seth Marvin I. He was the father of twelve children with his first wife. After her death, he fathered four more with his second wife, so he fathered 16 children. 

His son, who was my great grandfather Seth Marvin II followed in his footsteps. He had four children with his first wife. Then after her death, he had twelve more with his second wife, so he also had 16 biological children. He also raised 4 stepchildren, so he raised 20 children. 

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Amazing, just amazing. (Seth 2 also has a fabulous photo.)

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Pip, thank you for the nice comment. I have a great story about Seth Marvin II going and literally dragging his 14 year old step-son out of the Civil War, because of his age.

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Ha! Now that sounds like a GREAT story. I had an ancestor who lied about his age to get in, was wounded and captured at Gettysburg, and lost one of his forearms there.

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16 children with the second wife, plus 4 stepchildren - does that mean the poor second wife had 20 kids?

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Rob, thank you for your question. The second wife, my great grandmother, actually was the oldest of Seth’s four stepchildren, so she helped raise her eight younger siblings and another 11 children. I always thought that it was a crazy story, but doing genealogy and realizing that the youngest of her siblings was a new baby; it all makes sense —a widower with a new baby marring his twenty year old stepdaughter. My great great grandmother must have died due to complications of childbirth.  Consequently if her younger sibling are all added, she was responsible for 19 children, but she was the natural mother of eleven.

Answer 3

The biggest family I've found is my Great-great-great aunt, Kate Ellen (Blenkin) Jibson. The 1911 census records that she had given birth to 22 live-born children (I've only found 18 of them so far). All the ones I've found have been singletons (no multiple births).

As the youngest I've found was born in 1901 (ten years before that census) when Kate was about 42, it's unlikely (but not impossible) that she had more.

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Ruth, it's rare to see a profile where the children take up four lines. Stunning! (And good research, too.)

Answer 4

I don't have to go too far back. My grandmother was one of 14 kids, but only 7 lived past the age of 3. Two sets of twins (one pair of twins born prematurely, but lived several months). They were born on the farm in rural North and South Dakota, early 1900's. Those that survived childhood lived to average age of 87!

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Seven that averaged 87 years! I don't believe I have any families with that kind of longevity, Rob.

Answer 5

My top three are: 

1. My 2nd great-grandmother's brother Paolo and his 16 kids.

2. My 2nd great-grandparents Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran with their 13 kids.

3. My 4th great-grandparents Jean Baptiste Ross and Adelle Cyr and their 13 kids.

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So, that's why you have so many DNA proofs, Chris. Very cool!

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Pretty much, Pip. So many people in the tree had relatives who had a ton of kids who had a ton of kids and so on and so on. I need a scorecard to keep 'em all straight.

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I can imagine the wall chart you'd have to make to do that. One whole wall!

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Probably a whole room, Pip. My mom has/had fifty first cousins alone. My dad has a handful of first cousins but his other relatives have big families, too, like the Coppolas. the Tedescos and the Forgiones. We also have cousins who didn't test and live in Europe and South America.

Over on my mom's side, my 4th great-grandparents Jean Baptiste Bibeau and Therese Laroche had a ton of kids and their kids had a ton of kids and so on and so on. So, I have like 100 DNA matches who descend from that one couple.

Answer 6

I don't have to go very far back. My maternal Grandfather was 1 of 12. my Wife's family is bigger though. She is the youngest of 16.

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Twelve was my largest, Marty. Lots of 8s and 10s, but no 16s!

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Pip, did you ever read Cheaper by the Dozen?

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Haha! It was all those farm workers needed in my families.'

Answer 7

My husband's great great grandfather Billy Knight. He and Susanna had 7 children. After Susanna died, he married another Susanna who was a widow with 7 children, and they had 7 more children - 21. According to family history Billy was known to have told Susanna "my children and your children are fighting with our children"

Also Simon Reed and his wife Currance Sanford who  who had 16 children and were siblings of my great great grandparents Lucy Reed and Albion Sanford. Lots of double first cousins. And if 16 weren't enough, they adopted another daughter.

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This is classic! "my children and your children are fighting with our children"

Answer 8

Largest family I can accurately document is that of  G Grandmother Elizabeth (McIntosh) Purdy, who was the second of 10 children, all of whom survived to adulthood.

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Nice research on Elizabeth's profile, Dorothy!

Answer 9

21 and in direct line. So my great great grandmother bore 21 children. Mary Ann Cavanagh (you would have guessed wouldn't you?) was born in India and was pregnant at the age of 15 when she married. Her lifestyle took its toll and it is said she ended up in an asylum having taken to drink. Poor Mary Ann. I wish I'd met her.

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I bet she would have had some stories to tell, Derek.

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I suspect that sticking problem relatives into asylums was considered a solution in the past Alcohol and other problems were so prevalent and keeping the family's good name was more important than trying to solve the problem any other way..

Answer 10

My gt grandfather's half brother  Rowland Curtis and his wife had more than 20 children. I currently have 20 of them but a newspaper reports the 19th child I have as being their 20th. I have a book which has a photograph of the family who lived in Warminster, Wiltshire. I found another who I had missed in the list on his profile so currently have 21. I read that there were 22 but have not yet found that elusive 22nd child.

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Nearly twice as large as any family of mine, Hilary. The photographer must have had to use a wide-angled lens to get all those folks in one shot!

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Not sure if everyone was there but it possibly did include some spouses.

Answer 11

My gg grand parents William and Christena (Brown) McNicol had 10 children, of whom nine survived to maturity. What I found remarkable about this family is the extent to which they stayed together over  the course of more than half a century, starting with their marriage in 1848 in Glasgow, Scotland. William died in 1873.  At that time, the family was living on five contiguous homesteads in Spring Valley, McPherson County, Kansas. In the early 1880s, most of the family moved to Lost Springs, Marion County, Kansas. On July 4, 1900, there were three McNicol households in Lost Springs  and two Nettrouer families in which the wife was one of the McNicol sisters. By 1900 these five families had 30 children.  At a 4th of July picnic in 1900, Christena could count on the attendance five of her children and 30 grandchildren.  Two more of Christena's children lived in Kansas, one near Lost Springs.  Only the two youngest moved from Kansas, although the second oldest son moved to Alberta in his early 50s. By the time she died in 1919 (age 91), Christena had about 46 grandchildren.

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William and Christena's descendants could populate a small town, David!

Answer 12

My great-grandfather had 20 children with 2 women. With his wife he had 14 children, she died in child-birth with the last one, who was my grandfather. He never remarried but he formed a de-facto relationship with a woman a few years after his wife's death and they had 6 children together all of whom he legally acknowledged. As far as I am aware all but 2 lived to be adults, one of those 2 died aged 14 yrs and the other is at this time a mystery.

Answer 13

My great-grandfather had 20 children with 2 women. His wife died in childbirth with his 14th child (my grandfather). He never remarried but formed a de-facto relationship with another woman a few years later and had a further 6 children all of whom he legally acknowledged. Only 1 child died before reaching adulthood at age 14, all the rest lived to a good age.

There is a picture of him with all the children from his marriage [https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Fowler-11391-2]

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Great photo, Sarah!

Answer 14

My paternal grandmother, Lavinia Dunn, was one of 14 children. All but one lived to adulthood. These children were all with one mother and one father.

My maternal great great grandfather had 15 children with two wives. All of these children lived to adulthood.

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Ginny, I bet the work on those collateral lines of your gg-grandfather took some time!!

Answer 15

Family Sampaio, From Brazil.

Answer 16

William Derby Johnson, Jr. (1850-1923) My 2nd great grandfather had 4 concurrent wives and 37 children.  Fortunately he built a large ranching operation at the LDS Colony Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1891 so the children had plenty of space to run around in when they were not in school. 

By answering this weekly question some folks will probably think I'm taking advantage so I apologize in advance. But, just think on it a moment: 37 children...i don't know about you but it takes my breath away.

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My dad had a hard time remembering three names (he would just go down the list because he knew it was one of us). Can you imagine remembering 37 names?!?

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Leave it to an LDS-er in Mexico to take the crown. Bravo.

Answer 17

22 children!

Mary (Price) Mathis (1725-1803), wife of Edmund Mathis (1720-1783), was my 7th great aunt. According to the inscription on her headstone in the Edmund Mathis Plantation Cemetery, in Taylors Bridge, Sampson, NC, she was the "mother of twenty two children."

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Roy, have you been able to track all those children down yet? That would be a feat.

Answer 18

My 3GG, Shadrick Noah Galyean (1801-1877), had at least 21 children with his two wives - with a 45 year age gap from his oldest to youngest.  His second wife (my ancestor) was younger than his oldest son. My 2GG, Ama Perilla (Galyean) Nichols (1865-1942), is believed to be his 20th child.

They lived in Appalachia, right on the NC/VA line (near where the Blue Ridge Parkway now passes).

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Kevin, since yo have Appalachian roots, I had to check and see if we were related. It's not through you Galyean line, but we meet at the Runyons. I was not surprised how that worked out.

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Nice to meet you, cousin.  I haven't done a lot of input on WikiTree on non-direct ancestors in that particular line; I focused on connecting to and improving (some) existing ancestral records.  My memory is that there are multiple marriages between my Albin, Bruce, and Runyon lines that aren't included yet in WikiTree.  It's likely that our connection is closer than what is currently shown.

Best, Kevin

Answer 19

My 3rd great grandparents had 13 children and thanks to this question, the last child was just located on Find a Grave and connected to his parents.

WikiTree:  William Burdett Arant (1835-1926) & Amanda Ann O'Neal (1844-1919)

Find a Grave:  William Burdette Arant

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My 4th great grandparent had 13 children supposedly, but I have not yet confirmed it.

WikiTree:  Martin Benjamin Arant (1808-1893)

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Good find on the last of the Arant children, Tommy!

Answer 20

William Umlah (Umlach}, my maternal 3rd great grandfather from Nova Scotia, fathered 14 children with Mary Ann Wagner, then 2 more with Mary Ann (unknown) Shwartz, both wives passing away at age 42.   With 16 children, he then married Mary Ann (Peters) McGrath, the mother of 11, becoming a family of 27 children, of which, 3 of the Umlah children married 3 of the McGrath children.  William passed away at the age of 94.

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Twenty-seven children and he still lived to 94?!?

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Hi Pip, I'm on a marathon connecting the 3 pairs of William's Umlach and McGrath kids that married each other, seems that his father, after he fought in the French and Indian Wars, started to populate Nova Scotia......Scotsman you know.    Three of William's great granddaughters lived to be 104 (Anna), 106 (Lillie) and 103 (Annie), Anna being my grandmother.

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John, I don't have a single direct ancestor who lived to 100. Lots of them close, but no cigar.

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Pip, I tell a lie.....William lived for 69 years, his father, John, lived for 94 years.....I went off and hid for two days.

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I know the feeling, John.