Genealogy Chat

Do you find many couples just having the one or in fact no children at all which seems to happen in my family. I found a couple married in 1919 had a child in 1920 and have searched and trawled births in the hopes they might have had a son but no such luck.

Wishing you all a happy new year.


Margaret x

Margaret,

There could be any number of reasons why couples had none or only one child, though before contraception it is fairly unusual.

My Gt.Gt.Grandfather was an only child (born early 19th Century) I thought that odd but I discovered later that his Father died a few months after the birth.

M. Steer

Hi Margaret yes my mother was an only child her mother also was an only child and looking at my dads sisters it seems that one sister had one child the other did not have any. and the one sister that did have one she also went on to just have one child it does not make for a very large tree.

never mind

Margaret Finch

Out of five children (my grandpa being one) only 2 had children, they were born in the 1910s and 1920s.

Also, I've just recently found out my great great gran was an only child, and her parents were married for over 20 years before they had her, both nearing 50 when she was born!

Laura

I've found that some lines of my family have been extremely prolific, others have been practically barren, and in others nearly everyone either married very late or didn't marry at all.

My father's name will die out with me, because in 5 generations, only one line of males had children, and the last had only females.

Don't forget though, that even if you haven't found children on the censuses, there may well be numerous children who were born and died between censuses, stillbirths and miscarriages.

Margaret,I think in those days people would have had the same gynaecological problems that couples face today, if it wasn`t for IVF and other such breakthroughs, there would be alot of people today with no children, my gr grandfather was married for 20 years and had no children, he then married a woman 20 years younger and went on and had 8 children,so not wanting to apportion blame, but obviously he was more than capable of fathering children, and probably his first wife had problems. I read somewhere that 1 in 10 couples has trouble conceiving, and thats today, not long ago, yet in these cases alot of them could probably have children with a different partner easily, thats probably why some of your relatives didn`t have children.....it simply didn`t happen... and there was no medical intervention available to make it happen.

Nicky

My main family in my tree had 6 children in total. Two died at young age, a third died at about 12, the eldest female never married, the youngest did with no children that I have found, and the only other was a male who married and emmigrated, only problem with all that is that we are of the line that emmigrated so its an uphill battle to trace the family back in the UK.
Maria