Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Birth Order in Your Line

For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this week, Randy Seaver has us looking at birth order in our families.  Not much to be gained from this, I suspect, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.

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

(1) Pick one of your ancestral lines — any one:  patrilineal, matrilineal, zigzag, from a famous ancestor, etc.  Pick a long one if you can.

(2) Tell us which position in the birth order your ancestor was in each generation.  For example, "third child, first son."  Also list how many children were born to these parents.

(3) Share your birth order work with us on your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a comment on Facebook, etc.

Since Randy recommended choosing a long line if possible, I started with my father, zigged to his mother, and then zagged to her father, because I know I have several generations of Gauntts documented.  I could go further back with them, but I haven't entered all the information I have into my database.  I also could have gone further with the Sellerses, but just not emphasizing them anymore.

1.  Janice Marie Sellers (1962– ):  first child, first daughter of Bertram Lynn and Myra (Meckler) Sellers (2 daughters, 1 son)

2.  Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (1935– ):  only child, only son of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. and Anna Gauntt

3.  Anna Gauntt (1893–1986):  second child, first daughter of Thomas Kirkland and Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt (5 sons, 5 daughters)

4.  Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870–1951):  eighth child, fifth son of James and Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt (3 daughters, 6 sons)

4.  James Gauntt (1831–1889):  second child and first son of Hananiah Selah and Abigail (Atkinson) Gaunt (5 daughters, 4 sons)

5.  Hananiah Selah Gaunt (1795–1852):  fourth child and fourth son of Hananiah and Rebecca (Mulliner) Gaunt (5 sons, 1 daughter, but not sure all children have been documented)

6.  Hananiah Gaunt (1762–1799):  first child and first son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Borton) Gaunt (5 sons, 3 daughters)

7.  Joseph Gaunt (1740–1806):  second child and second son of Hananiah and Ann (Ridgway) Gaunt (2 sons, 2 daughters, again not sure all children have been documented)

My averages are:

• child number:  3
• number of children:  7.14