So Many Descendants: Looking at the Loveless & Lancaster Lines

Which lines of my ancestors had the most descendants? I would first guess that it would be the Roman Catholic side since they tended to have large families. But, it turns out that my mother’s southern side had just as many children, who had many children, etc. I have many distant cousin DNA matches from descendants of the Loveless and Lancaster families.

Lancaster
Robert Lancaster (1784-1840) had seven children.

• He had at least twenty-three grandchildren.
• He had at least forty-four great-grandchildren.
• He had at least thirty-six 2x-great-grandchildren. However, as I was counting from a list of descendants, I don’t think I have researched forward on all the lines. There are likely many more in the fifth generation (and thus more in each of their further generations).
• He had at least sixty-four 3x-great-grandchildren.
• He had at least thirty-seven 4x-great-grandchildren.
• He had at least twenty-four 5x-great-grandchildren.

I am in this eighth generation. I have only researched deeply my grandmother’s siblings’ and cousins’ offspring. I can see that there are many of the fifth generations of Robert’s family where I have not taken the lines forward. I should do this, so I can identify more of my DNA matches.

So, adding this up, I have 235 descendants down to my generation (8^th).

Loveless
James Loveless (1771-abt 1846) had twelve children.

• He had at least forty-three grandchildren.
• He had at least forty-one great-grandchildren, but I did not follow through on all of the grandchildren’s lines.
• He had at least 92 great-great-grandchildren.
• He had at least 55 3x-great-grandchildren.
• He had at least 54 4x-great-grandchildren.

This last generation is the seventh and the one I am in. Let’s add this up and see how it compares to the Lancaster line. I counted 297 descendants, and that is not all of them. Many of the lines only go to the fourth generation forward. I could even add more if I went forward to the eighth generation as I did with Lancaster.

These southern families have my Catholic families beat for sure. I have many more lines to follow if I want to do a thorough DNA study of the Loveless and Lancaster descendants that I match.

By the way, I thought I’d let you know how I came up with the numbers. I printed out the 10-generation descendants’ list in RootsMagic and counted the number in each generation. Here is a sample image of the list.

#52Ancestors-Week 23: So Many Descendants

This is my sixth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.