It’s time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

This week’s challenge is easy for me:

1)  Determine who is one of the most prolific fathers in your genealogy database or in your ancestry. By prolific, I mean the one who fathered the most children.

Off the top of my head, I already know who Prolific Fathers #1 and #2 are because it’s easy to remember a dozen and a half children!

Samuel Tarbox ranks #1 with 18 children. He had six children with first wife, Rebekah Armitage, born between 1666-1676. He had twelve more with second wife Experience Looke, who gave birth to twelve children between 1679 and 1699. At least four of those children died young and I’m unsure of death dates for four others. That means ten of his children married. I happen to be descended from Child #18 – Joseph Tarbox who married Susannah Stevens. This family settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts and lived there for decades.

However, I really need to mention Prolific Father #2, Loyalist Philip Crouse who married Sarah Burt. Sarah was his only wife and the poor lady gave birth to 17 children – 16 of whom lived to adulthood! That is pretty incredible. In this family, my ancestor was lucky child #7. Peter Crouse married Rebecca Jones and they lived in New Brunswick, Canada. Peter was only in his mid-30s when he died, but he and Rebecca had five children. When Rebecca remarried, she moved to Calais, Washington, Maine. Rebecca is also the direct line back to my only Mayflower ancestor, George Soule.

Thanks, Randy, as always, for this week’s challenge.