Want to Blow Your Mind?
I currently go back about 12 generations on Cape Cod through my grandmother Helen (Hopkins) Downs to my immigrant ancestors. Every time I go back a generation, there will be twice as many people in that generation than the previous one I researched. In the 12th generation back from me, there should be 4096 people. In all 12 generations combined there should be a total of 8187. I guess I’m lucky inasmuch that this all took place on the Cape where the population wasn’t large enough to support such a family tree. With much remarrying into families, my numbers are considerably smaller.
Going the other way can be even more cumbersome. In the previous instance, everyone has two, and only two, parents. But going forward, especially in earlier generations, there were usually a lot of kids. My great grandfather Thomas Downs had 6 sons. After this, things slowed down and each of those sons had on average 2 children. Thomas and Anna had 12 grandchildren. But in earlier centuries, a large family was the rule.
The Mayflower Society has published books containing the first five generations of many of the Mayflower passengers. A look at the total individuals covered in each of these books might give you an idea of how families grew rapidly back then. My ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, had 534 descendants after 5 generations. This includes his own generation of one, and goes up to his great great grandchildren. My ancestor Thomas Rogers on the other hand had only 308. Neither Stephen nor Thomas is even close to being in the running for having the most or the fewest. Poor John Billington only had 125, whereas John Howland had an even 500 through just his oldest child, daughter Desire Howland. John had 10 children so we can see that his progeny over the same five generations will be thousands when it is all finally tallied.
People often begin genealogical projects and define the scope of such projects without any consideration to these numbers. I recently read a statistic somewhere that one in ten Americans can trace their ancestry back to a Mayflower passenger. Suddenly, it is not such an exclusive club.
Going the other way can be even more cumbersome. In the previous instance, everyone has two, and only two, parents. But going forward, especially in earlier generations, there were usually a lot of kids. My great grandfather Thomas Downs had 6 sons. After this, things slowed down and each of those sons had on average 2 children. Thomas and Anna had 12 grandchildren. But in earlier centuries, a large family was the rule.
The Mayflower Society has published books containing the first five generations of many of the Mayflower passengers. A look at the total individuals covered in each of these books might give you an idea of how families grew rapidly back then. My ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, had 534 descendants after 5 generations. This includes his own generation of one, and goes up to his great great grandchildren. My ancestor Thomas Rogers on the other hand had only 308. Neither Stephen nor Thomas is even close to being in the running for having the most or the fewest. Poor John Billington only had 125, whereas John Howland had an even 500 through just his oldest child, daughter Desire Howland. John had 10 children so we can see that his progeny over the same five generations will be thousands when it is all finally tallied.
People often begin genealogical projects and define the scope of such projects without any consideration to these numbers. I recently read a statistic somewhere that one in ten Americans can trace their ancestry back to a Mayflower passenger. Suddenly, it is not such an exclusive club.
posted by Bill | 10:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home