Saturday Challenge- Most Children

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

1)  The Family History Hound listed 20 Questions about your Ancestor, and I'm going to use some of them in the next few months.  

2)  Please answer the question - "What ancestor had the most children?  How many?" 

This is from last week’s fun challenge from Randy Seaver that I’m just getting to. Yes, I’m behind on doing many things- not just writing posts, but hopefully I will catch up in the next few weeks.

I am not going to check my family trees on this one- just say off the top of my head that it would be my great-grandfather William Jennings. He was married twice and had children by both wives as detailed below:

 

William Jennings with Sarah & eight of their children

By Margaret Wilson:

Mary (1879-1879)

Richard  (1880-died young)

Fannie (1881-1948)

May (1884-1931)

Susie (1886-1940)

William (1888-1970)

Six children, that’s a lot, but after Margaret’s death, he married Sarah Damery and had a few more children by her:

Lillie (Elizabeth) (1890-1965)

Kate Ann (1890-1947)

Alice (Grandma) 1893-1970

Sadie (1894-1960)

Boby (1896-1969)

Bella (1897-1968)

John Richard (1898-1899)

George (1901-1901)

Ruby (Rebecca) (1903-1978)

Hady (Harriet) (1904-1989)

Emily (1905-1982)

Edward (1907-1909)

Yes, that is twelve more for a total of eighteen children that William fathered! You can see why I didn’t bother checking through the rest of the tree. Many people over the years have had large families, but this one stands out for it’s size. 

Granted, all the children weren’t present at the same time, but they grew up in a small cottage in Ireland. It was as I recall hearing two rooms on the ground floor with the a second floor that may have been divided into two rooms.  The house still exists today on a cousin’s farm. She tells me that in more recent times they have used the building as a granary.