Saturday Challenge- Oldest and Youngest Women Ancestors

From Randy Seaver and his Genea-Musings blog: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) Review your Pedigree Chart (either on paper or in your genealogy management software program) and determine the age at death of your female ancestors back at least five generations (and more if you want to).

2)  Tell us the lifespan years for each of these ancestors.  Which of your female ancestors in this group lived the longest?  Which lived the shortest?  

This took me awhile to do. The first problem was to figure out how to create an ahnentafel for my ancestors so that I didn’t have to go back through each line figuring them out. Although it turned out to be rather easy, it took me a little bit to find where in Reunion to create it as for some reason I was thinking it was different than a report. Below are my results:  

Mother

3-Wooster, Alice A

Grandmother

5-Ingalls                        Frances  (19 Oct 1889-6 Jul 1962) 72 years

7-Jennings          Alice V  (14 Feb 1893-28 Oct 1970) 77 years

G Grandmother

9- Titus Maria C (12 Jun 1858-8 Nov 1927) 69 years

11- Brown Achsah L. (31 Aug 1864-25 Jul 1899) 34 years

13-Duff, Edith Mary (30 Oct 1868-19 Dec 1951) 83 years

15- Damery, Sarah (1862-1 Feb 1948) 86 years

GG Grandmother -

17- Blackwell, Mary Ann (14 May 1828-11 Aug 1902) 74 years

19-Tobias, Lodema (16 Oct 1831-28 Mar 1926) 94 years

21- Fay, Mary Ann (11 Nov 1840-24 Jul 1906) 65 years

23-Wright, Anna S (12 Dec 1836-13 Feb 1923) 86 years

25-Tift, Elizabeth Hannah (11 May 1826-24 Mar 1906) 79 years

27-Johnson, Mary Ellen “Nellie” (25 Dec 1847-12 Feb 1921) 73 years

29-Fuller, Mary                                        unknown

31-Wolfe, Elizabeth (1823-abt 1862) 39 years

GGG Grandmother

33-Wood, Elizabeth (abt 1803-7 Nov 1879) 76 years

35-Blackwell, Ann unknown

37-Lockwood, Maria (abt 1801-bef 25 Feb 1862) 61 years or so...

39-Chase, Rebecca (31 Jan 1802- 20 Nov 1850) 48 years

41- Stahl, Gertrude (abt 1800-2 May 1869) 69 years

43-Wood, Louisa (1809- 10 Apr 1845) 36 years

45-Gibbs, Julia Gibbs (1798- 20 Apr 1855) 57 years

47-Ford, Margaret (13 Sep 1808-11 Nov 1894) 86 years

49-[unknown], Jerusha (7 Aug 1781- 24 Mar 1841) 59 years

51-Du Colon, Betsy De Colon (15 March 1794-bef 1850) 55 years or so...

53-McCargo, Mary E. (10 Jan 1815-12 Aug 1908) 93 years

55-Aubin, Mary Jane (15 Apr 1815-29 Feb 1904) 88 years

57-Stanley, Frances              unknown

63 Crostone, Susan (abt 1800-28 March 1865) 65 years

Lodema (Tobias) Titus whens the temporary award for the oldest living female at 94 years. She is closely followed by Mary (McCargo) Johnson at 93 years. However, we need to revisit the second place number in a few months as her gg granddaughter, my mother, may have something different to say about that and create a tie for second place come January.

The sad award of shortest years is given to Achsah (Brown) Ingalls at 34 years. We must also with this one mention her daughter, Emily who passed a month after her mother at age 2 months. Something happening with her birth likely contributed to that death. Louisa Wood is second place with 36 years. An unknown baby girl died just the month before her, so probably complications from childbirth caused her death as well. It is sad how often this occurred in the old days. I’m glad we have more knowledge that enables better health care today. 

Oh, and if you're curious what the picture at the top has to do with the challenge, probably nothing. I was looking for a generic picture to brighten up the post and thought the chickens were cute. As most of these women either grew up or lived on a farm as adults or both, they most certainly encountered and dealt with chickens many times. These chickens were actually on a farm I visited last weekend in Madison County during their Open Farms Day.