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Sunday, May 01, 2016

SATURDAY NIGHT GENEALOGY FUN:MY 2X GREAT GRANDPARENTS' LIFESPANS

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has an interesting Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge regarding the lifespans of my 2x great grandparents. Here's the Challenge:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:
1)  We each have 16 great-great grandparents.  How did their birth and death years vary?  How long were their lifespans? 

2)  For this week, please list your 16 great-great grandparents, their birth year, their death year, and their lifespan in years.  You can do it in plain text, in a table or spreadsheet, or in a graph of some sort.

3)  Share your information about your 16 great-great grandparents with us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+.  If you write your own blog post, please leave a link as a comment to this post.

Okay, I decided to compare the two sides of my family. What stood out to me immediately was that my 2x great grandparents on Dad's side lived much longer than Mom's,  with five living past
age 80 an one just missing it by a year.

Dad's Side
Jonathan Phelps West  (1834-1917) 83 years
Louisa Almata Richarson (1837-1925)  88 years
Asa Freeman Ellingwood (1828-1921)  93 years
Florilla Dunham (1832-1917) 85 years
Nathaniel S Barker (1830-1884) 54 years
Lucy E Coburn (1842-1904) 62 years
Amos Hasting Barker (1828-1907) 79 years
Betsey Jane Moore (1842-1924) 82 years

Mom's Side
Patrick J White (1848-1902) 54 years
Mary Powers ( 1848-?) ? years
Charles Offinger (1848-1881) 34 years
Johanna Luick (1844-1908) 64 years
Michael McFarland (?-?)  ? years
Dorothy  _____  (?-?)  ? years
Patrick Kelly (1829-1886) 57 years
Anne Byrne (1831-1900) 69 years

My Dad's farmer ancestors in Maine had longer lives than Mom's Irish and German immigrants in Boston. Of course, I'm missing information on some of the Irish relatives but I don't think that would
make a difference in the wide disparity of ages.

I hope I take after Dad's side of the family.   

2 comments:

Kat said...

Bill this is interesting! I wonder how the stresses of life in the home country and subsequent immigration effected the lifespan of your Mom's ancestors?

Elizabeth Handler said...

Thanks for the suggestion, Bill. I added that analysis to my SNGF. See From Maine to Kentucky~Lifespans of My 2x Great Grandparents. Interestingly, my dad died at 68 (his side averaged over 75), and my mom is still living at 81 (her side averaged 62).