Following up on the mothers of my ancestors, I totaled [hopefully] the number of kids in each family. Accuracy here is a bit shaky. In some cases research was done on only one child, so siblings weren't mentioned. I may have only located or focused on my direct line ancestor. There's a considerable margin for error. Anyhow, here are the numbers of "recorded issue."
# of kids - frequency
(1) 13 = 2
(2) 12 = 12
(3) 11 = 15
(4) 10 = 9
(5) 9 = 16
(6) 8 = 14
(7) 7 = 27
(8) 6 = 22
(9) 5 = 18
(10) 4 = 18
(11) 3 = 11
(12) 2 = 12
(13) 1 = 68
Reasons for the size of the family:
(1) most of our ancestors were farmers and needed a lot of kids to help out;
(2) infant mortality rate was relatively high, so large numbers of kids were common;
(3) the wife died in child birth;
(4) multiple marriages; if the wife died, the husband needed a female to take care of his children; if
the husband died, the wife needed a man to support her and her children;
(5) one spouse or the other could no longer procreate;
(6) the wife reached an age where child-bearing was no longer healthy for her;
(7) large families were no longer in vogue
(8) enough is enough!
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