How many children did your grandparents have?

Moderator Joined: Dec 04 2005 Posts: 6171 Location: israel

How many children did your grandmothers have? Only count live births where the "children" lived past age 12. Only children of your maternal grandmother and paternal grandmother (so it doesn't count if you grandfather had a second wife etc)...

Take each of your grandmothers and count the number of kids(your parents + your aunts and uncles by birth) and add them together.

Let's see how many of them had really large families....

You can add in what year they were born if you want to............

Mine-one had 2 kids and one had 3 for a total of 5. Both were not allowed to have more kids for (completely different) medical reasons. One was born around 1909 and the in the early 1920s.
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one had 3 (no idea if by choice or not) and one had one. She waited 10 yearws to get pregnant and then my grandfather died, so for sure not by choice.

My mother's parents only had her. I think the dr said that if she has more children, her hearing in her other ear will go. She couldn't hear out of 1 ear.
My fathers parents had 5, my father is the youngest.
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Last edited by Amital on Mon, Jun 30 2008, 8:28 am; edited 1 time in total

Ooops...I voted wrong. 5 kids on my Mom's side, 4 on my Dad's. Total of 9, but I went with the 5-8 option since I didn't see the "add them up" part until after I'd voted.

Posted: Mon, Jun 30 2008, 8:27 am Post subject:

My grandmother on one side had 2, on the other side, 4. But, my great-grandmother had 10. She never could keep their names straight, according to family lore. Well, I guess I can identify with that!

Diamond Member Joined: Apr 16 2007 Posts: 2952

My grandfather had eight children, six of whom were killed in the war. He remarried after the war, he was close to 50 at the time and he and my grandmother had 4 children together, each one named after a parent.

On the other side my grandparents had three children, then my grandfather passed away at a young age.

Last edited by Ruchel on Mon, Jun 30 2008, 9:13 am; edited 2 times in total

Mom's mom had 2, the typical modern frum family in Belgium at the time. I suspect it has to do with the crazy strict way nidda was kept in her community, as she told me she noticed in her circles even some extremely frum people had zero, one or two kids. Born in 1932 in Belgium to Greek family.

Dad's mom had only 1, very sick woman, always sick, going from hospital to hospital, etc. Born in 1910 in Poland, moved to France as a young woman.
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Diamond Member Joined: Nov 11 2007 Posts: 3790

According to the way you're asking, the answer is 4, 2 each. But that's because they were 2nd families - they both lost children in the war (all under age 12). My grandparents all came from rather large families and had history played out differently would have likely had very large families themselves.

Up to now the results show two things:
- people had fewer kids
- either doctors said not to go on more easily, or people listened to them more

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 11 2004 Posts: 19241

7 on one side (frum) and 3 on the other side (not-frum) but one was killed tragically as a teenager.
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Posted: Mon, Jun 30 2008, 9:09 am Post subject:

My fathers parents only had him. He was a long awaited baby and they didnt have any more after him. He was born in 1945 in america. (My grandfather's parents came to america in the 1800's and m grandmothre came when she was one.
My mothers family had her and a younger sister. (1949) Family had been in America for about 3 generations already.

Moderator Joined: Dec 04 2005 Posts: 6171 Location: israel

Platinum Member Joined: Jul 27 2007 Posts: 14768

Both sets of grandparents lived in Eastern Europe. All four grandparents born around 1900. One side had two children, the other had five but wound up with four, as one died in early childhood.

My grandparents are relatively young. One grandmother had three children (not by choice, the last two were twins!), and another had just my mother, an only child.

on father side 7 - grand mother was prob born in 1905
on mothers side 5- grand mother ad meah vesrim was prob born in 1914

My father comes from a family of 6, my mother from a family of 8. My grandparents are relatively young, accordingly.
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Posted: Mon, Jun 30 2008, 10:33 am Post subject:

woops! didn't answer correctly because I didn't see the post, just the poll. so I guess there's an extra one in 5-8 and one missing in 12-16.
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Platinum Member Joined: Aug 01 2005 Posts: 16906

My grandparents on both side of the family were teenage war survivors and got married in about 1950. both had six children (each).
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Gold Member Joined: Dec 25 2007 Posts: 1247

My grandmother on my mother's side had 6 children - she was American, born in the late 1890s early 1900s. My grandmother on my father's side had 10 live births -- she was born in Europe, but all of her children were born in the US(lower east side of NY, where there was a thriving immigrant community). She was born also late 1890s, early 1900's. So that makes 16 -- Wow!

Platinum Member Joined: Mar 24 2008 Posts: 6528

My grandmother believes that she and her sisters could not easily have children because of what their bodies went through during the war (starvation, etc. ) while their bodies where still developing. She had 3 children.
Her mother had 16 children, 15 of whom survived infancy until the war, and 4 who survived the war.