I remember watching the movie, Saving Private Ryan, some years ago, and thought, that's very hard, but my Great-Grandmother, Emily Castle Carrick, had it even worse. (Castles of Withernsea and Owthorne, Carricks of Easington) Her mother had died when she was little and her father had gone off to Canada when she was just 12 (where he died of cancer ~ found a death record in Toronto after ages of searching) Emily and her husband, John Henry Carrick, a master carpenter of Easington, had seven sons and a daughter. Most of their sons were involved in the conflict then called the Great War: one lost a leg to gangrene when he was pinned down with his dead buddy in a trench (I believe, in Belgium) and his toe became infected (had to drink his own waste liquid to survive) ~ he was a favorite of my Hull-born mother who remembered watching him strap on his wooden leg; another died during the worst days of the fighting at Passchendaele, Ypres in October, 1917 ~ a nightmare scene from the looks of photos of that war theatre; another sustained a head injury that necessitated a metal plate attached to his skull to protect his brain ~ he had terrible headaches. My grandfather fared better as did the other boys. I have often reflected how terrible it must have been to have sons at that time. I have one son and a son-in-law who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, but to have seven sons! Looking back over my ancestors families, 12 seems pretty much the norm in family size. Monty Python's Yorkshire skit on the prolific nature of the people seems to have had some truth in it, but I don't know. Kindest regards from sunny Clifton, Virginia Brigitte Begue Hartke On 7/28/12 10:06 AM, suzanne paget wrote: > Here it is - but now see how many more other families have managed to produce. Amazing! > > > > > > Suzanne > > Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 09:42:05 +0100 > From: christine.willott@btopenworld.com > Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] family size > To: suzannepaget@hotmail.com > > Send it to the list and see. > Chris > From: suzanne paget <suzannepaget@hotmail.com> > To: christine.willott@btopenworld.com > Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 9:14 > Subject: RE: [YORKSGEN] family size > > > > > > Interesting question Chris.Would twelve children be considered a high number (1835-1853)?There were eight boys and four girls.Suzanne. > > > >> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:24:21 +0100 >> From: christine.willott@btopenworld.com >> To: > YORKSGEN-L@rootsweb.com >> Subject: [YORKSGEN] family size >> >> The list is rather quiet at present so on the way back from the Wakefield archives yesterday, we decided to suggest a competition. Family sizes in the past were large so who has got the family with the most children to any one set of parents? Step families are excluded. Then we thought who had the most girls in a family and who had the most boys? >> >> Chris >> ..... >> Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; >> www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; >> www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > ..... > Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; > www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; > www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message