Once again, Saturday has rolled around and Randy Seaver has issued the newest Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge. This week, we are to choose a set of great grandparents and trace the number of descendants that they have had, in other words, what was the family’s increase in numbers.

I had two choices on this challenge, which is actually a bit difficult. I could have taken the easy way out and chosen one of my own sets of great grandparents. However, none of my great grandparents have tons of descendants as several of the families had only one or two children and then perhaps only one married of them. Or, they had many children, but born in Slovakia with a super high infant mortality rate, so again, the surviving family numbers were small.

My other option was to look at one of my husband’s sets of great grandparents, most of whom had huge families and take on that count.

I opted to go the semi-tough route. My husband’s maternal great grandparents have zillions of descendants. Dave has no idea how many first cousins he has on that side and many of them also have large families.

The Stufflebean side started out huge, but the descendants aren’t so many as to be unmanageable, so that is the branch I chose.

John Henry Stufflebean, 1863-1938, married twice. With wife Mary Elizabeth Hollen, he had nine children:

1. Ernest Lavern
2. Iva Myrtle
3. James Herman
4. Owen Wayne
5. Earl Marcus
6. Lila Hazel
7. Henry Sylvan
8. Nolan Kay
9. John Kenneth

Mary Elizabeth died on 2 January 1905 and John Henry married (2) Addie Lucinda Belcher on 21 May 1905. They had five more children:

10. Bernice Mae
11. Gladys Cirese
12. Henry Glenn
13. Eula Lee
14. Mary Frances

Of the fourteen children, Owen Wayne and Lila Hazel both died in childhood. The others all married, but not all had children.

Therefore, the descendants tally looks like:

1. Children (9) – All deceased.
2. Grandchildren (about 25) – Most are deceased, but I believe three or four of the youngest (born in the 1940s) are living.
3. Great Grandchildren – (17) of which I am aware. At least two have passed away.
4. Great Great Grandchildren – (11) of which I am aware, but I think there are probably many more.

That is an increase of +62, but I know that 62 is a minimal number.

My father-in-law kept track of all these kin and told me about them. I even have photos of a number of the great grandchildren because the Stufflebean clan visited one another in California and Oklahoma. However, the great grandchildren are of my husband’s generation and much of their contact ended by the 1970s. That leaves many years for more descendants to be born.

Randy mentioned the difficulty in tracking some lines after 1940. I am having the same difficulty, but realize that I need to work more on this line and find some of the more distant cousins.

This task is also made much more difficult because of John Henry’s children, Ernest, Kenneth and Glenn only had daughters so the Stufflebean name was lost; neither Sylvan nor Nolan had any children.

I actually find it quite ironic that my son is the last (youngest) male descendant of John Henry Stufflebean to carry the Stufflebean name even though he had all those sons.

Lines I then need to follow are the families of Iva Myrtle (who married one of the zillions of Baker relatives), James Herman, John Kenneth, Bernice Mae, Gladys Cirese, Eula Lee and Mary Frances.

This ought to keep me busy for a while! Thank you, Randy!