Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Children Did Your Ancestors Have?

I'm playing catch-up to an older Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post that I intended to comment on at the time, so no, you are not in a time warp.  That's why my topic doesn't match what's on Randy's blog today.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Thinking about your ancestors back through 2nd-great-grandparents — in other words, ancestors #2 to #31 on your pedigree chart — how many children did they have?  How many lived long enough to marry?  How many died before age 10?

(2) Tell us all about it in a blog post of your own, in comments on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.  Be sure to link to them in a comment on this blog post.

So I took my cue from Randy and am only recording children born to my ancestral couples, not to other marriages or relationships those ancestors might have had.

#2–3:  Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (1935–2019) and Myra Roslyn Meckler (1940–1995), 3 children, all lived long enough to marry.

#4–5:  Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903–1995) and Anna Gauntt (1893–1986), 1 child, who lived long enough to marry.

#6–7:  Abraham Meckler (1912–1989) and Lillyan E. Gordon (1919–2006), 3 children, all lived long enough to marry.

#8–9:  Unknown, possibly Mundy (?–?) and Laura May Armstrong (1882–1970), 1 known child, who lived long enough to marry; small possibility of a second child, who died before the age of 10.

#10–11:  Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870–1951) and Jane Dunstan (1871–1954), 10 children, 6 lived long enough to marry, 3 died before the age of 10.

#12–13:  Morris Meckler (~1882–1953) and Minnie Zelda Nowicki (~1880–1936), 7 children, 6 lived long enough to marry, 1 died before the age of 10.

#14–15:  Joe Gordon (~1890–1955) and Sarah Libby Brainin (~1885–1963), 4 children, 3 lived long enough to marry, 1 died before the age of 10.

#16–17:  Unknown, possibly Mundy (?–?) and Unknown (?–?), 1 known child, who lived long enough to marry.

#18–19:  Joel Armstrong (1849–~1921) and Sarah Ann Deacon Lippincott (1860–after 1904), 3 known children, all lived long enough to marry.

#20–21:  James Gauntt (1831–1899) and Amelia Gibson (1831–1908), 9 known children, 7 (that I know of) lived long enough to marry

#22–23:  Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840–1873) and Martha Winn (1837–1884), 6 children, 4 lived long enough to marry, 2 died before the age of 10.

#24–25:  Simcha Dovid Mekler (?–before 1905) and Bela (?–before 1924), 2 known children, both lived long enough to marry.

#26–27:  Gershon Itzhak Novitsky (~1858–1948) and Dora Yelsky (~1858–1936), 7 known children, all lived long enough to marry.

#28–29:  Victor Gordon (~1866–1925) and Esther Leah Schneiderman (~1871–1908), 9 known children, 8 lived long enough to marry, one died before the age of 10.

#30–31:  Morris Brainin (~1861–1930) and Rose Dorothy Jaffe (~1868–1934), 8 known children, 7 lived long enough to marry, one died before the age of 10.

I didn't break down the children by sex, but the total number of children is 74.  Of those, 62 lived long enough to marry (the original question Randy posed, not whether they actually did marry) and 9 died before the age of 10, but I don't have death dates for everyone, so both numbers might actually be higher.  In addition, there is one child whose father is unknown, but that man might be the same as someone else's, which would bring total number of children to 75 and 10 children who died before the age of 10.

I had 15 families, the same number as Randy, but my average was 4.93 children per family and 4.13 children who lived long enough to marry.

One family had only 1 child and two other families had only 1 known child.  One family had 2 known children, but there were almost definitely more.  Three families had 3 children; one of them might have had more.  One family had 4 children, one had 6, two had 7, one had 8, two had 9, and one had 10.  Several of those might have had more children.

My parents had 3 children and no deaths before the age of 10.  My grandparents' generation averaged 2 children and no deaths before the age of 10 per family.  My great-grandparents' generation averaged 5.5 children and 1.25 deaths before the age of 10 per family; and my great-great-grandparents' generation averaged 5.625 children and 0.5 deaths before the age of 10 per family.

My numbers differed from Randy's in some ways, but as he said, it's hard to tell what exactly that signifies.