How Long Is a Generation? Video Added!

[Bro. Dave]

Brief observation on life expectancy: the short life expectancy of previous generations might hint that there were few old folks around, but the statistical deal is that the reduction in infant mortality accounts for a huge part of the increased life expectancy.

Remember from school how much a zero averaged into your grades decreased it? The improved survival of premature infants, in utero treatment of birth defects, and many other medical wonders have really decreased the infant mortality rate.

 

[rwsmith]

I've always heard 20 but.....

I've always used the example of when you (a person) was born and the birth of your (that persons) first child. In the US I think that is about 25 years now.

But it will vary according to how you define it.

..people married and reproduced earlier. I like the 25 figure for these times because more people hold off on having kids until they are about that age, plus that fact that life spans are longer. So it has gotten more 'stretched' over time.

Anyway, people have always attached a hard and fast number to something that really isn't hard and fast.

Whatever, the Dutch lady sounded a 'little' off in her counting. I don't look at generations as a point of pride, probably because one Smith and his son came over here in the very early 1900s. My Mom's side is indeterminate, except that they are of Danish/Dutch ancestry. I've only been able to go back a little ways and I KNOW they didn't come over on the Mayflower.

Interesting point. Some friends went to Scotland and looked through the records in any town/church their family touched, even the 'Domesday' book and was able to go WAY back to around 1000 AD. That's a 'few' generations whether they are 20 or 30 years.

 

[wood714]

I have a picture of my grand dad, mom, me, my daughter, and grand daughter...that's 5 generations, right?

 

[Texas Star]

Jail Bait!

Ivan

Maybe, but not necessarily incestuous.

Back to my original question, I'm guessing that Demi-Leigh's ancestors arrived in South Africa from the Netherlands about 150 years ago. I think that's around the time gold was discovered in the Boer republics. Maybe that brought them there. They may have known Paul Kruger!

But family members may have married into long established Afrikaner families. Some may have been there since Gov. Simon van der Stel first planted wine grapes at Constantia.

I guess the best course is to ask her directly. Has anyone got Miss Universe's home phone number?
(Yeah, I know: she'd talk to me...in my dreams!)

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

If I go back five generations on my dad's side four of my grandparents were born and lived there entire lives in Denmark, two were born in England, one in Ireland. It was their kids that came to America.

One of those grandparents from five generations back (my wild card) was Pennsylvania Dutch with an old American blood line that goes back all the way to the Mayflower.

Of this generation of eight paternal grandparents, thanks to the work of other relatives, I know all their birth and death dates, when and where they were born and married, their children, and lines of decent.

My Dad had his DNA tested about six months ago and it came back almost a perfect match to this known bloodline. A little bit of French, which was unexpected, probably from our Dutch "Heinz 57".

No Indian blood, but when I looked back another two generations in that blood line I did have a set of grandparents who lived on the western Pennsylvania frontier who had their barn and cabin burned to the ground by an Indian raiding party, sometime in the 1760's, I think.

They survived by retreating, along with their children and neighbors, to a fireproof stone block house which was a short distance away, built and maintained by the community precisely for that purpose.

Faimly lore says all the exitment and commotion caused my grandmother, who was 9 months pregnant, to go into labor precisely as the Indians were attacking and had the settlers under siege and lock in their bunker. Parts of that block house survive to this day.

 

[Golddollar]

Brief observation on life expectancy: the short life expectancy of previous generations might hint that there were few old folks around, but the statistical deal is that the reduction in infant mortality accounts for a huge part of the increased life expectancy.

Remember from school how much a zero averaged into your grades decreased it? The improved survival of premature infants, in utero treatment of birth defects, and many other medical wonders have really decreased the infant mortality rate.

I have seen evidence that tends to support this premise. Back in my misspent youth I had a job whose duties included maintenance of an old cemetery that included veterans of the Revolutionary War. In that cemetery were buried young children, and a lot of people who lived into their 70's and 80's. Their were very few people who died in their 40's and 50's. There were family groups that included graves of young children who died within a week or two of each other. It was probably from some sort of epidemic. So it seemed that if you could survive the childhood diseases that existed back then, and military service in young adulthood, you had a pretty good chance of living a fairly long life.

 

[Texas Star]

Seriously, this genealogy stuff is fascinating. My son called tonight and he's learned things about my father that I never knew. Father was often away and we never really bonded a whole lot and he was rather secretive. But various archives have made his life come more alive for me.

We're also learning a lot about my mother's family.

 

[Absalom]

Being a first-generation naturalized American, my roots are all back in the old country.

I can thank the Nazis for having information on my ancestors going back six generations; my grandfathers both were public employees, a teacher and a city clerk, and after 1933 they had to collect documentation and complete family trees showing there were no Jews in the family if they wanted to keep their jobs.

The attached photo shows the preprinted form one of them filled in, going back to the 1760s. Quite some time ago when my dad was still alive he sorted all the surviving documents, made copies in plastic binding and passed them out within the family to ensure their preservation. One of his many wise ideas.

 

[BAM-BAM]

My Dad was 37 when I was born....... my eldest was born 44 years later...... so ...........40.5 years.

My eldest is 20 and not yet married "or a father" (thank you God) ..... so at least 33.666666666666 years and growing!!!!!!!





Historically; a 'Generation is "a score" of years.......example; the generation of "Baby Boomers" ( that be most of us guys) is 1946 to 1966.......

though in some 3rd world countries it's actually only a "Baker's Dozen"

 

[Skeet 028]

Something that not all think of...graveyards from the 1600s and 1700s were usually for use of the landed gentry like they had been in the countries they came from. Rich folks could afford good food and even the rudimentary medicine of the time. The everyday person was planted in usually unmarked gravesites on farms and other places. When we cleaned up a field back east in Md I am sure we disturbed an old unmarked family plot...no bones etc..no markers...just the suggestion it may have been a gravesite. I lived next to the oldest established church around(C1680). There were quite a few older people planted there. But they were the rich folks with enough money to have carved stones/markers. None of my forebears. The average person did not usually make it to even the mid 60s. Another thought not many know of...the average farmer ate pretty well back then. But their work was back and life breaking labor.

 

[Roadtrash]

If I go back five generations on my dad's side four of my grandparents were born and lived there entire lives in Denmark, two were born in England, one in Ireland. It was their kids that came to America.

One of those grandparents from five generations back (my wild card) was Pennsylvania Dutch with an old American blood line that goes back all the way to the Mayflower.

Of this generation of eight paternal grandparents, thanks to the work of other relatives, I know all their birth and death dates, when and where they were born and married, their children, and lines of decent.

My Dad had his DNA tested about six months ago and it came back almost a perfect match to this known bloodline. A little bit of French, which was unexpected, probably from our Dutch "Heinz 57".

No Indian blood, but when I looked back another two generations in that blood line I did have a set of grandparents who lived on the western Pennsylvania frontier who had their barn and cabin burned to the ground by an Indian raiding party, sometime in the 1760's, I think.

They survived by retreating, along with their children and neighbors, to a fireproof stone block house which was a short distance away, built and maintained by the community precisely for that purpose.

Faimly lore says all the exitment and commotion caused my grandmother, who was 9 months pregnant, to go into labor precisely as the Indians were attacking and had the settlers under siege and lock in their bunker. Parts of that block house survive to this day.

I sure would like to know the name of the people who retreated to the blockhouse and whose blockhouse it was because I have a similar story in my tree but I can't recall who it was. Who know's we might share an ancestor or two. If you recall the names please post or pm me.

 

[jtcarm]

SRich folks could afford good food and even the rudimentary medicine of the time.

Uh, cutting edge medicine in those days were leeches and mercury to treat STDs. Trips to the doctor could shorten one's life expectancy.

 

[Skeet 028]

Providing medical care for the family was hard as some of the family records, esp bibles, showed. People, died in the later 1700s and the 1800s from diseases and things that we take for granted today as no big thing. They had this information all written down for more than a hundred years. People died from cuts colds burns flu symptoms and any number of things that would happen. The family had tenant farmers(sharecroppers) on most of the small farms they had on the Eastern Shore. They even attempted to help those tenant farmers through sicknesses. Medicine esp before the 1930s was not all the greatest. My father in laws grandfather died in 1919 from the flu epidemic. He was fine one day and 4 days later he was dead. Women of childbearing age died regularly from child birth. Heck some of my mothers side of the family were indentured servants in the 1680s to the 1770s which was just a form of slavery and if you happened to become sick and needed medical care they tacked that money and time on at the end of your servitude. Things were tough out in the world. Becoming OLD was celebrated cause not every one did.