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What about your oldest father?

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  • What about your oldest father?

    We have a thread about the oldest mother (haven't worked mine out yet), but how old was your oldest ancestor when he fathered his last child?

    My 3 X great grandad married for the third time in 1826 and his youngest child was born in 1847.
    He was 73 years old. His wife was 32 years younger than him.

  • #2
    76 - the father in my thread about the oldest mother!

    Actually, I think I might have one even older than that - I'll check.

    OC

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    • #3
      off the top of my head, only 71, though this was his first marriage, to a bride some 34 years younger LOL. They married when she was 17 & he was 51.

      He died at 73, and she outlived him by 32 years, having 2 illegitimate children when she was in her 40's. (His Will made it difficult for her to remarry. The children were by her cousin, who in turn was 20 years younger than she was)
      Vicky

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      • #4
        I have several men in my tree who became fathers in their late 60's but none over 70.

        William Wyllys had his first child when he was 65 and his last (four altogether) when he was 70. He had been married previously for 45 years, but had no children from the first marriage.

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        • #5
          Frederick John Horniman's first wife was born in 1822 and his second wife was born in 1875! He was born in 1835.

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          • #6
            Again, can't be bothered to search the whole tree but the oldest I can immediately think of was 49. Might have one or two in their 50s that I've forgotten about but I'm pretty certain I haven't any over 60.
            Michael, aged 1/4 of a century

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            • #7
              No, I've checked - he wasn't the oldest, just seemed like it - 27 children born over a 49 year period to three wives! But he was 68 when he fathered the last child.

              OC

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              • #8
                I think William House was 73 when his youngest child was born. I thought I had found the wrong will, because I didn't recognise the names of his children, till he mentioned Ann, wife of Robert Brown. She was 46 years older than her youngest half-sibling.
                Phoenix - with charred feathers
                Researching Skillings from Norfolk, Sworn from Salisbury and Adams in Malborough, Devon.

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                • #9
                  My oldest was 62, James Haines my 4x Great grandfather - he had 17 children by 2 wives. and died in 1904
                  Vikki -
                  Researching Titchmarsh and Tushingham

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                  • #10
                    Phoenix

                    Yes, my blokey with three wives and 27 children - the oldest boy was already a grandfather several times over when his youngest half-sib was born.

                    Led me a right merry old dance too because I thought I was looking at three men, three families, for ages.

                    OC

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                    • #11
                      61 is my oldest - the husband of my oldest mother (see oldest mother post) he is my 3xG grandfather.

                      However my own father ran him close as I born 3 months before his 61st birthday. I've recently been doing his tree and due to his 'late start' I have 2nd cousins who are in their 70s! It makes the generations a little out of kilter - especially as his first grandchild (my dau) wasn't born until he was 91!
                      Bo

                      At present: Marshall, Smith, Harding, Whitford, Lane (in and around Winchcomb).

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                      • #12
                        Not my relative, and one can't believe everything one reads in books, but in the Scots Magazine dated March 1784 (presumably published a month in arrears) this death is recorded as occurring on 31st March:

                        "At Alnwick, Hugh Rowland Hughes, gent., aged 114 years, 11 months,and 17 days. He married, in the year 1700, Mary Williams, by whom he had nine children. In the year 1721, he married Margaret Roberts and had five children; in the year 1731 he married Mrs. Mary ach Richard Price, of Dulas, in Anglesey, and had two children; and in the year 1748, he married Margaret ach Robert Evan, of Caernarvon, and has left her a widow with seven children, all alive, men and women."

                        Assuming this is correct and that his widow's children were not from an earlier marriage, he must have been fathering children well into his eighties!

                        Incidentally, does anyone know what the word "ach" means - is it something like "widow of"?

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                        • #13
                          Roger

                          Wild guess - does ach mean daughter of, in the way that ap means son of?

                          I once came across a burial of a man aged "143 - a great aydge". I found myself looking for his baptism, lol - which I did not find, of course.

                          OC

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                          • #14
                            OC

                            I wondered that too, but hoped we'd have someone who spoke Welsh.

                            Roger

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                            • #15
                              Here you are Roger!

                              Welsh to English Lexicon

                              OC

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                              • #16
                                My gt gt grandfather John Smoothy born Chelmsford 1812, fathered his fourth and final child in 1870 when he would have been 58. His wife, at 46 is probably my eldest mother too.
                                ~ with love from Little Nell~
                                Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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                                • #17
                                  In In six weeks time I shall set up a new record in my family history for being the longest-lived male.

                                  That's not the only record I have in mind.
                                  Len of the Chilterns passed away July 2021

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                                  • #18
                                    OC

                                    Thank you for that.

                                    So was Mrs. Mary ach Richard Price a widow who was known by her ancestry rather than her late husband's surname? From the lexicon it seems it could mean "of the lineage of..." in this context.

                                    Not important for me to know, really, just idle curiosity.

                                    Roger

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                                    • #19
                                      Roger

                                      I thought I'd leave you to battle with the intricacies of the definition as it seemed a bit vague to me!

                                      There is a similar set up in Scotland - mac means son of, nic means daughter of, but not necessarily DIRECTLY, if you see what I mean, she could be "daughter of" someone who lived 200 years previously - meaning female descendant of, I suppose. Clannish, rather than a strict family tree.

                                      (Shades of submitted IGI entries here)

                                      OC

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                                      • #20
                                        OC, that reminds me of something I once heard...

                                        A 90 year old man told his doctor that he and his 20 year old girlfriend were expecting a child. "Let me tell you a story", said the doctor, "There was once an old man who went out hunting, but as he was rather short-sighted he picked up his umbrella instead of his gun. As he was walking through the woods, he saw a bear. He raised the umbrella and fired - and, amazingly, the bear dropped dead."

                                        "That's impossible", replied the man, "someone else must have shot the bear."

                                        "Precisely" said the doctor.
                                        Michael, aged 1/4 of a century

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