Ahnentafel numbers, I am curious ......

As someone who concentrates on trying to achieve a contiguous build up starting with 2 I make it to 43 with 4 omissions, and then to 63 with a further 5, and I tend to concentrate within these generational boundaries. Beyond that, using an expression of my mother's my results are "more holy (holey) than righteous'. My highest number if 121.

 

My highest and lowest haven't changed - 6 (my maternal grandfather) in the 1911 census, and the highest is 248 in the 1841 census.

I’ve filled in a lot in the middle in the meantime, considering a large proportion of my paternal ancestors aren’t on the census for various reasons - emigration, living in Scotland etc

 

Interesting, I hadn't looked at my entries this way. Reading your post inspired me to check, and I find I also go up to 43 with 4 omissions, then up to 63 with a further 6. Of these 'missing' 1o, two are due to my Irish 2x great-grandfather's parents being in Ireland, and another 5 had died before the 1841 census. So that leaves 3 still to find. I'm pretty sure they were alive in England in 1841 but they have so far proved elusive in the census.

 

My lowest is a 2 - my Dad in the 1911 census - and the highest is 113 in the 1841 census.

 

As for the run of numbers, considering the numbers of my paternal side who emigrated before 1881 (all but my paternal great grandfather who emigrated in 1906, but lived in Scotland) and the missing chunk for my illegitimate maternal 3xgreat grandfather, the biggest I have without gaps is 13 between 50 and 63 and 11 between 106-117, otherwise they’re really in twos to fours before a gap, or a random single.

 

While some omissions will relate to ancestors we have yet to identify (such as the father of an illegitimate ancestor) others are beyond our control - some ancestors are simply not there in the right censuses.

The 1841 census is missing or wanting for several of the villages where some of my Wiltshire ancestors were then living, and I have at least one ancestral family that seems to be missing from the 1881 census index. Then there are those who were born after 1841 but died before 1881, and similarly with 1881 and 1911, and those who were not recorded in a particular census for various other reasons.

 

I was about to make the same observations as I had concluded quite independently that the age of Forum members would play it part in determining the lower numbers and certainly the higher, as Peter explains.

 

I would sure to be one of those who would be considered on the lower end of the age range of members of this forum, considering I only have one grandparent on the 1911 census - but then my maternal grandparents were considerably older than my paternal grandparents (10 years between my grandfathers and 8 between my grandmothers).

Even then, my parents were "old" when they had me - we have a great story of one of my father's friends (they're the same age) whose eldest grandchild is the same age as my younger brother.

 

That's a good example of how easily our ancestors within a particular generation can be out of step agewise, and the further back we go, the more out of step they can get. And in the days when large families were the norm it was not uncommon for age gap between the oldest and youngest child in one family to be over 20 years, and maybe much more if the father had married more than once.

I have some 4 x great grandparents who were still alive for the 1891 census while others in that same generation, despite living to reasonable old age, died well before 1841. I also have a 6 x great grandmother who almost made it to the 1841 census, and is the most distant ancestor for whom I have a GRO certificate.

 

I thought it might be worth reviving this thread because I've got more clues to follow re the 1841 census based on the abundance of more available parish records in the past few years.

 

My lowest will never change - 6, my grandfather in the 1911; but I have a new highest (although I think it's still debatable) a 256 (previously my highest was 248).

As for the numbers - nothing has changed, biggest run is still 13 from 50 to 63 and 11 from 106-117. Though I haven't updated much recently as a lot of my entries were duplicated accidentally and I have been slowly cleaning up my Lost Cousins entries ever since! (I have cracked a previously unknown line since the last update)

 

My highest number is still 238 (my 5x g-grandfather), and I recently had a match on this ancestor with a cousin who is his 6x g-grandson, so would be a higher number for him.

 

This thread links quite well with a comment Peter made in a recent newsletter, and which got me thinking. He wrote:

"If you're my age or older the chances are that some or all of your grandparents were born before 1881."

I am less than 10 years younger than Peter, but the first census in which any of my grandparents appear is the 1901, and the first in which all 4 appear is the 1911.

I guess it all depends on the age gap between the generations. I am the younger child of two youngest children, and my grandparents were aged between 55 and 63 when I was born.

 

I will be 80 later this year and my maternal grandparents were born in 1886 and 1887. My paternal grandmother was born in 1891. My highest number in LC is still 113.

 

I am older than Peter.
My maternal grandparents were born in 1890 and 1893, my paternal grandparents were both born in 1885.
My highest number is 119 and my lowest is 2, my father was 2 months old at the time of the 1911 census.

 

Having not reached my 4th decade, I am one of the younger users of this site and as such only my grandfather (as previously mentioned) makes it onto a census, the 1911. My grandparents were born in 1909, 1915, 1919 and 1923. So even when the 1921 census comes out, not all of them would have appeared on it! (plus two of them were born in Australia anyway)

My parents are both in their 7th decade - and both are older than Peter - but only one of their combined grandparents was old enough to be on the 1881 census - but he wasn't in the census even then as his family emigrated in 1840. My great-grandparents were born in 1878, July 1881, 1884 (x3), 1885, 1891 and 1893.

My mother is older than my father, but on balance, her grandparents were younger than his - being born in 1881, 1884, 1891 and 1893. They also had smaller families - my maternal grandfather (1909) the oldest (number 2) surviving of seven, and maternal grandmother (1915) the oldest of two.

My father's grandparents had larger families - his paternal grandfather born 1878, and he and his second wife (1884) had 9 children over 17 years - my paternal grandfather (1919) was number 7 [this particular great-grandfather was at least 23 years older than his own youngest surviving half-sibling, who was born in 1901, he was 36 when his youngest half-sibling was born in 1914 and had three children of his own]. My paternal grandmother, born in 1923 (her parents were 1884 and 1885) was the 4th of 5 - her eldest brother was born in 1915 [my grandmother is still living, but all of her siblings have died]

 

How does this make you feel, most of us are old enough to be your parents.
Thanks for the interesting explanation.

 

I'm used to it, some of my good friends from work are old enough to be my parents. If I'm feeling cheeky, I remind them!

 

Sorry to be pedantic but if your parents are older than Peter then they must surely be in at least their 8th decade?