What is the largest single gender offspring family in your tree?

Question

Following on from a "Question of the Week" about the largest family in your tree, let me challenge you even more:  What is the largest descendent tree in your pedigree that has children of only one gender (male or female) - either in the same family (e.g eight sons and no daughters) or better still, across multiple generations... (e.g. a couple had three daughters, who each married and between them had 10 children - all of them female, etc.)...?

Any takers?

Answer 1

I have a couple,  Jacob Zartman, Jr (1749-1796) and his wife Regina--whose first 7 children were daughters.  Then, they might have had a son, John.  However, unlike his 7 older sisters, John is not recorded in the baptismal records the family, so his existence remains circumstantial, based on other geographic evidence.  None of the 7 daughters have been traced further on Wikitree, so don't know about the next generations.

Comments

Would be interesting to see if the daughters then continued to have daughters...

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Looking at the daughters alone, that only happens 1 time in 147 families who have 7 children. Continuing until you have a son - now that's a bit more common.

Answer 2

My family is current and not very large, so I don't know if it's of interest.  I am an only child and have 2 sons, 3 grandsons, and am now awaiting the birth of my first great-grandchild, also a boy.  My ex-husband (father of my sons) has 1 brother and 3 sisters, so the all male line starts with my sons.

Comments

Somewhat similarly, my paternal grandparents had three sons. Only my dad reproduced, and he had two sons. I have three sons (and an unknown - for about three more weeks.) My brother has one son.

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Gaile, congratulations! Children, grandchildren and now a great-grandchild! This is wonderful. Please let us know what the baby is and when he/she arrives.

Answer 3

It's not quite what you asked for, but my husband's ancestors include a family that had seven sons and then -- finally!, six and a half years later -- a daughter. (One of the sons died in infancy, but the rest all made it to adulthood.)

Here's their mother: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kirchlehner-1

Comments

Yes, I used to holiday with a family that had 7 daughters until finally a son was born... It's important for some.  ;-)

Answer 4

My great-great-grandmother had five children, all daughters. Only one of them, my great-grandmother grew up to marry and have children: three daughters. One of them was my grandmother, who had two children, both daughters. These two daughters, my mother and aunt, had three daughters each, no boys.

My cousins, my sisters and me have broken the chain by having sons as well as daughters.

And to tell the truth, the sister of my grandmother who also had children had a mixed bag of boys and girls.

Answer 5

My grandfather had 7 female descendents (4 daughters and 3 grand daughters) before having his first male descendent, a grandson, at the age of 63.

Answer 6

I had a co-worker (just anecdotal, no genealogy here I can point to) who was one of 3 brothers.  His father was one of I think 7 brothers, and his grandfather also only had brothers.  Finally one of his cousins had a girl - the first girl born into the family in 100 years.  So she obviously got special attention, particularly by the wives in the family.

Answer 7

One of my uncles had five girls. The only boy was still-born after the birth of the girls. His parents (my paternal grandparents) had only boys--four of them. These are the only families in either of my lines I know of with children of only one sex.

Answer 8

I had to dig deep for this one, but the youngest son of Elizabeth (Standley) Minser, Samuel Lowry Minser (1877-1918), had 8 daughters, no sons. A first cousin of my great-grandfather.

He was a detective, and the story is that he died so young as a complication of his being brutally assaulted at a place called Lucerne Mines while investigating alleged speakeasies and found unconscious in a field the following morning. But EIGHT daughters? That ought to be enough to guarantee you an early grave, right there...  

Comments

Would be interesting to see if the daughters then went on to have daughters again...

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Well, you got me looking...

Daughter #1 never married. So far, so good (in a way, I guess).

Daughter #2 … had 4 children … ALL GIRLS!

Daughter #3 … I'm not 100% sure, but I only know of one child - a DAUGHTER.

Daughter #4 … died when she was 2 years old.

Daughter # 5 … blows the streak. Three kids - a daughter and (gasp) two sons.

In all, only three of the 8 sisters had at least one son, but three of the remaining five who didn't had no children at all.

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I have added profiles for this guy, his daughters, and his grandchildren, at this point:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Minser-26#Descendants

Answer 9

I have one family of ten daughters, no sons.

Comments

Any daughters in the previous or the next generation?

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The mother was one of nine daughters, but she had three brothers.  four of the ten daughters died in childhood, one of the others had three daughters, no sons, another had several sons and daughters. I think one or two had no children. They were distant cousins, I myself am one of five sons, have two sons and four grandsons.!

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That only happens once in 1250 times!

Answer 10

Not in my family, but I sourced a family with ten daughters and a hired man.  The next census had the hired man, now a son-in-law, and married to the oldest daughter who had grown up and apparently fell in love with a handy boy friend.

Answer 11

A first cousin of mine married a fella whose parents had about seven children, all boys, and the parents said they still wanted a girl, so they kept going. Another boy (eight), another boy (nine), another boy (ten), another boy (eleven), another boy (twelve). Finally, the thirteenth child was a girl, and.... they forgot to stop and had another girl!

Twelve boys, and lastly two girls.

Comments

Wow - that's impressive (or desperate), whichever way you look at it.  14 is more than two handfuls - what a household.  Wouldn't be able to afford kitting them all out with iPads and laptops these days...

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Twelve (12) boys in a row is rather unusual.

Twelve bou only happens once in 5000 families, that is if the family has 12 children.

Since not all that many families have 12 children (the USA average has been about 3 since 1960), this makes it a very rare event in the population as a whole.

Your family will probably be the winner for least likely combination!

Answer 12

my uncle had 5 sons no daughters so that is fairly recent

Answer 13

2nd great aunt had 4 sons. That’s the most I’ve seen in my close family tree. I have a ton of families that have like 6/7 children, with all except one child being the same gender.

Answer 14

Interesting question!

None in my family, but I am aware of William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg  and  Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal. They had six (6) children, all six were daughters.

If the probability of having a daughter is 50%, then probability of having 2 or more drops as  follows:

Number of daughters         Probability

                 2                                ¼  (or 25%)

                 3                                1/8 (or 12.5%)

                 4                                1/16 ( or 6.25%)

                 5                                1/32 (or 3.12%)

                 6                                1/64 (or 1.56%)

                 7                                 1/128

                 8                                 1/256

                 9                                 1/512

                10                                1/1024

             ____________________________

 Since the actual sex ratio is 51 boys born for every 49 girls these numbers aren't precise, but they're close enough to get the trend... 

             ____________________________

I could not find William IV & Marie Ann on WikiTree (although they are on Wikipedia). If they are not here, I was tempted to add them to give us a good example of an improbable family. But that is a task best left for someone experienced with European Royalty/Nobility.

Thanks for the interesting question…

Best wishes    

Answer 15

Interesting question. I have just added the family of Joseph Labossiere, my 1st. cousin, 4X removed and his wife, Angelique Belanger. They had nine children, all sons.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Labossiere-195

Jim LaBossiere

Comments

Thanks Jim!

Did the streak continue into the next generation?  That would be really interesting.

Matt

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Hi there. Of the nine sons, four died young, leaving five, but I have only found the marriages and families of three so far and no, it did not continue into their generation. While adding other in-laws tonight, I noticed this family who had 12 children and all boys, but not really related to me.  Not all of the sons have been entered yet. It is PRDH Family 8907, if you use PRDH. Jim.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Archambault-109

Answer 16

good question

Answer 17

My maternal father's lineage had only one son in each generation.   In one case there were 11 girls and one boy.

Answer 18

One of my 4th great-grandfathers, Charles Dibble, was one of nine sons.  He had one sister, named Delight in honor of their paternal grandmother.

Answer 19

My paternal grandparents both came from familes where all the children were of one sex. My great grandfather Bernard (McEvoy-531) had eight sons, one of whom - Reginald (McEvoy-530) married Emily Brookes, one of the seven daughters of Samuel Brookes and Francis Bennett.

Answer 20

My father was the youngest of 13 -  11 sons and just 2 daughters.