Carnival of Genealogy - 100th Edition - 'There's one in every family!'
It's a FAMILY REUNION - the 100th Edition of Carnival of Genealogy.
And the topic for the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is…
“There’s one in every family!”
My perspective in these comments relate to the pre-1940 era; not recent years when other sociological factors have perhaps become more prevalent. It also relates primarily to the families with over five children living to adult age that was so prevalent for most of the years of the eighteen and nineteenth centuries where most of my research has been done..
There is at least one single person in (nearly) every family.
It may be a 'maiden lady' or a 'bachelor,' but it has always been interesting to me from my early days of family research that this seems to be true... in nearly every family with which I have worked. I've not done a statistical analysis, but this is my anecdotal observation. Your observations may be similar or different, of course. I'd be interested in your thoughts; comments welcomed.
Families are Forever! ;-)
I hadn't thought about this before but as I think about my families now (spur of the moment), I can only think of two families with adult children who never married. Hmmm. I'll give this some thought. Thanks for mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteI think this is true for the majority of my families, although I'm pretty sure there were a few in which all of the children married.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that many of these people may have been gay or lesbian. Sexual orientation wasn't something that many people talked about until recent generations.
ReplyDeleteYes, my family does seem to have had one of those in most generations as well. Perhaps it is indeed sexual orientation, perhaps (for the woman) it was the freedom they got from not marrying, or (for at least some of them) obligations like taking care of ailing parents prevented them from finding the right guy.
ReplyDeleteWe had a house with four aunties. It was a big Victorian mansion outside of Salem, Massachusetts, and it was filled with portraits of sea captains, ancestors and antique furniture. One auntie had never married, two were widowed, one had divorced years before. They ran a music school at the house for a while, where my father and his brothers all learned to play piano. The aunties died long ago, and the house was destroyed to make room for a highway. Everyone still refers to it as "The Bill Aunts" house even though it disappeared in the 1960s! Your post brought back lots of memories... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWhat wonderful comments! Thank you, so much, for sharing with us. Makes the original post so worthwhile! ;-)
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