"Thanks so much for the great information. I am really shocked thought that >Jannetje was still having children at age 43...........MERCY!" Greetings, all - I've been reading again in Firth Fabend's "A Dutch Family..." book, which has tables that show the age at which the last child was born in the early generations of the Haring family in what was then Orange County. It appears that in the second generation, when land was still plentifully available, families were larger and women went on to have children longer. By the third and fourth generations, the goal of this family of providing a farm (something like 200 acres) for each son, and a comparable settlement on the daughters, was getting more difficult - and at that early date they seemed loathe to move any great distance from the rest of the family. Family size became somewhat smaller (still large by our standards!) and age at birth of last child came earlier. The second generation is referred to as the "patentee" generation - the Tappan Patent was 16,000 acres, and the Harings had three shares in it - the average age of the wives at the birth of their last child was 43. The four men of this generation had 42 children. In the third generation, 11 men had 84 children, and the age at birth of the last child was 37 (a high of 45), and average interval between births was 28.8 months. I realize that this is a small sample size. In the fourth generation, the age of the wife at the birth of the last child was also 37, but the average interval between births was now 32.4 months. Two women had children at 40, one at 43, two at 44, and one at 47. The average number of children in these families was 10.5 in the second generation, 7.6 in the third generation and (only) 5.4 in the fourth generation - it seems that economic realities were being faced. Regards to all, Regina Haring, Nanuet, NY