Ages and Ancestors ...

To be honest, I'm still not sure what exactly I should write about on the topic of age, but I think I'll just give some overviews of a few life milestones for some ancestors with the inclusion of their ages.

Ages At Marriage

One of the youngest age for an ancestor's spouse that I have seen at the time of marriage was 17 years of age, and the husband was nineteen at the time of the marriage. Of course, this was the first marriage for my ancestor, but it was not his last. I have already mentioned that this ancestor was married three times, and his first marriage obviously occurred at a young age. Outside of this marriage, I have noticed that most of my female ancestors started marrying at 18 or in their 20s, and that most of my male ancestors married in their 20s. In a few marriages, my female ancestor was a few years older than my male ancestor.

Ages At the Time of Family Tragedies

Instead of writing about the ages of my ancestors at the time of their deaths, I thought I would focus more on the ages of some ancestors at the time of a family tragedy. Of all the tragedies that could befall a family, I think the death of the mother had to be the most tragic for the children. Unfortunately, I have a few ancestors who lost their mothers at young ages. One of my ancestors was 12 when his mother died, and another female ancestor was about ten when she lost her mother. Another ancestor lost his mother probably at the age of 7 or 8 years old. Of course it is tragic for the children to their mothers at a young age, but this occurred three generations in a row. All but one of the fathers of the children above remarried, and in one case, the step-mother was cruel to her step-children. I realize that this is a depressing topic to mention, but the loss of a mother does have an effect upon the life of the family and the lives of the children.

Of course, these are just a couple of millstones in the lives of my ancestors, but these are the ones that stick out the most to me.