Ann wrote:

"Hi, Paul -- I am not a subscriber to the mailing list, but I run the
GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list, and I often search for the keyword "DNA"
in other mailing lists and message boards. That's how I spotted your
post.....

Your numbers are very consistent with a study by Tremblay, using
pedigrees 9 to 13 generations deep in a French-Canadian population.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?AJHG991229PDF

I've posted Tremblay's numbers on the GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list, but
some have expressed skepticism that the Catholic French-Canadians
would be typical. Could I ask you about your data set -- the time
span, geographical origins, cultural factors and so forth that might
affect the average?

Thanks;

Ann Turner - GENEALOGY-DNA List Administrator
Search or Browse the archives, Subscribe or Unsubscribe at
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/DNA/GENEALOGY-DNA.html
author of "Trace Your Roots with DNA"
***********
Hi again, Ann.  The comparisons charts I created a number of years ago
were not atall scientific, and were done in order to make my teaching
of beginning genealogists a tad easier.

For newbies, the censuses before 1850 are confounding at best, and
utterly impossible at worst, as you well know.  To be able to
extrapolate even the most approximate ages of birth years for parents
from the ages of children, especially if those are several in number,
is most helpful.

As I researched my own many lines preparatory to writing my life's
work - a family history - I accumulated census returns for 1850 and
1860 across many lines.  Those were gleaned principally in Southern
Tidewater and eastern Piedmont of NC and VA in the South, and in PA
and mid-OH north of the M-D Line.

I full well realize that thereby my comparisons are likely skewed in
the direction of folks of 17th and 18th century western England and
those of "PA Dutch" and Puritan origins from PA, New England, etc.
In addition I gathered - quite at random and when time permitted such
work - the same information for a fewer number of my lines in MA, VT
and upstate NY.  From those 2475-2485 comparisons I deduced the age
probabilities that I cited in my email which you saw.   I gained no
data and surely confess complete ignorance re the French Canadians.

I must say that since then I have written and taught (simply because
it is easier for them to remember) that the average 1st child is born
at about age 21 for women and age 25 for men, the mid-child at about
31 for gals and 35 for men, and the last child with the mother at
about 41 and the father near 45.  As I use those numbers, I remind all
that exceptions are found everywhere.

Your comments would be appreciated, especially in light of your DNA
studies and comparisons.

Cordially, Paul Drake

(PS; should you wish to examine my writings containing those same
numbers and guesstimates, search me as author at <Heritagebooks.com>
and at Amazon or Willow Bend Books. PD)

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