Late fatherhood....

[sue]

I don't recall who (or on which thread it was) raised the subject in recent months as to the question of late fatherhood.....

In addition to knowing of GGGGGfather Thomas Quick b St Ives 1739 who fathered his son Thomas Quick 1807 - therefore age c 67/68.....

I have just come across Francis Curnow age 65 in 1911 census a carpenter in Penzance (born Paul Newlyn), 30 yr old wife, 2 daughters age 14 months & 3 months. So fathered Edith Muriel Curnow at age 64/65....


Not bad going....

And further evidence that the Curnows as well as Quicks just kept on multiplying! ;D

Happy New Year everyone!

Sue

[marychown]

My great-great-grandfather William Henry Jenkin (1819-1911), a blacksmith of Madron Church Town, married his first wife Elizabeth Pooley when he was 20 in 1839. My great-grandmother Mary Ann Jenkin was born later that year. His wife died in 1858 after bearing him seven children. In 1880, when aged 61, William Henry Jenkin married his second wife, a spinster called Alice Rowe who was just 32! They had a son Edgar Nelson Jenkin in 1881 when Walter Henry was 62.

My 3xgreat-grandfather Hannibal Thomas of Zennor (1771-1853) had a brother called William Thomas (1776-1852) who was a carpenter living at Boswednack, Zennor. William married twice. He had nine children by his first wife Christiana Eddy and a further 14 children by his second wife Christiana Mitchell and was 65 when his last child was born. It was said that there was a cradle in front of his hearth for upwards of 40 years. According to the author Gilbert John Anderson, there was a custom in West Cornwall two centuries ago for prizes to be awarded annually to the parents who could show the largest and best ordered families - and in connection with this, it is recorded that on one occasion William secured 'the highest honour out of 24 parishes'. He was popularly known and until the early years of the twentieth century still remembered throughout the district as 'Willie Carpenter' or 'Willie One-More'!

Mary