When I was a kid I used to hear old folks and my teachers talk about how “back in the day” people had much larger families. That is true, but it wasn’t until I really got into genealogical research I realized that those large families of yore were not like the occasional large ones you see today. Mothers gave birth to a lot of babies, but they usually did not all survive.

Of course there are many variations around the world depending on geographic location, social status, and wealth, but from what I have seen in my research in France (usually in Normandy and the Loire Valley), the child mortality rates in the 17th and 18th centuries were terribly high.

On to the example of the day:

Françoise Lefaistre was born about 1709, and she married Pierre Le Simple in Sancerre, Cher, France on the 27th of January 1739.¹ She gave birth to eleven children! More unusual still, she had THREE sets of twins! Ten of those eleven babies died at birth or while very young. It’s hard to contemplate that amount of tragedy.

Baptism	Burial	Name
9 July 1741	unknown	Pierre2
1 Nov 1742	10 Jan 1743	Marie Françoise3
6 Feb 1744	17 Feb 1744	Jean4
22 Jan 1745	28 Sept 1747	Jacques Vincent5
12 Mar 1748	13 Mar 1748	Michel6
12 Mar 1748	13 Mar 1748	Sylvain7
1 Dec 1749	3 Dec 1749	Catherine8
1 Dec 1749	3 Dec 1749	Marianne9
9 Feb 1751	12 Feb 1751	François10
9 Feb 1751	12 Feb 1751	Paul11
10 July 1752	22 Feb 1753	François12

French records almost never state the cause of death, so we can only guess at what happened to Pierre and Françoise’s children. There were plenty of causes to chose from, such as poor nutrition, lack of sanitation, accidents, lack of modern medical care, premature birth, birth complications, birth defects, and disease.

Françoise died not long after her last child on the 12th of June 1754, and was buried the next day. She was only 45.¹³