Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission: Impossible! music!), is:
(1) Marcia Philbrick wrote Celebrating 50 Years today on her Heartland Genealogy blog and suggested it for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, so here it is:
(2) How many of your ancestors were married for FIFTY years? What is the longest marriage of your ancestors in your tree (from marriage to first death of a spouse, or divorce)? Consider, say, the last six generations to make it manageable!
(3) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Please leave a comment on this blog post to lead us to your answers.
I saw this challenge and thought I was going to have only one pair of ancestors who made it to 50 years. I was wrong about that! On the other hand, Randy had 52 couples, while I have a total of only 18, and I had to go all the way back to 6th-great-grandparents to get that many.
Parents
• Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler: 16 years (1961–1977)
Grandparents
• Abraham Meckler and Lillyan E. Gordon: 50 years (1939–1989)
• Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. and Anna Gauntt: 0 years (They were never married.)
Great-grandparents
• Cornelius Elmer Sellers and Laura May Armstrong: 15 years (1903–1918)
• Thomas Kirkland Gauntt and Jane Dunstan: 59 years (1891–1951)
• Morris Meckler and Minne Zelda Nowicki: 36 years (1900–1936)
• Joe Gordon and Sarah Libby Brainin: 41 years (1914–1955)
Great-great-grandparents
• James Gauntt and Amelia Gibson: 38 years (1851–1889)
• Frederick Cleworth Dunstan and Martha Winn: 15 years (1858–1873)
• Joel Armstrong and Sarah Ann Lippincott: about 22 years (1878–about 1900)
• Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dora Yelsky: 60 years (1876–1936)
• Avigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leah Schneiderman: about 19 years (about 1889–1908)
• Morris Brainin and Rose Dorothy Jaffe: about 39 years (about 1881–1930)
Great-great-great-grandparents
• Hananiah Selah Gaunt and Abigail Atkinson: about 23 years (about 1829–1852)
• Richard Dunstan and Jane Coleclough: 21 years (1833–1865)
Great-great-great-great-grandparents
• Hananiah Gaunt and Rebecca Mulliner: about 14 years (about 1785–1799)
• Joel Armstrong and Catherine Stackhouse: 30 years (1823–1854)
Great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
• Joseph Gaunt and Elizabeth Borton: 44 years (1762–1806)
Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
• Hananiah Gaunt and Ann Ridgway: 61 years (1730–1792)
The longest marriage I have recorded is 61 years, for my 6th-great-grandparents Hananiah Gaunt and Ann Ridgway.
The lengths of the marriages range from 14 to 61 years. Two of the marriages were ended by divorce; the others ended with the death of one spouse.
The average length of the 18 marriages is 33.5 years.
Four marriages of the marriages lasted 50 years or longer. That's 22.2% of the marriages. Randy had 15 of 52 marriages last 50 or more years, which is 28.9%.
Wow! You have 59, 60 and 61 years of marriage in your tree. That's a lot of years.
ReplyDeleteTrue! Considering the more recent performance of my family, I was quite surprised. :)
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