There could be many reasons for this: 1) The haphazard way the @#$% muster was done. I've wanted to travel back in time and strangle some of those awful recorders. They seem to note many things--structures, livestock, etc.--almost completely randomly. It seems that each person recorded what he felt like and what he thoguht was important rather than following a standard! Children likely wouldn't have been considered important enough to record by all of them. They might not have seemed a "unit of production" yet. 2) The massacre of 1622, followed by the fever of 1622-23, as has already been mentioned. Though a number of women (and children, too?) were ransomed, it would be unsurprising that infants and young children died as a result of the traauma. Others would have been very likely to have been adopted into Indian society--the younger, the more likely. 3) The lack of women. Though there were some women after 1611, there still really weren't many. And their husbands seemed to keep dying right and left--many of the women seemed to go from one husband to another very rapidly. 4) Infant mortality is a possibility, but I don't think I can buy that one. Women didn't dies in the same droves as men in VA (hence the women- and-pigs jokes), and really, the babies who weren't in an malaria-infested area had, if anything, a better living environment than their counterparts in an English village. The isolation of groups of settlers would actually be beneficial for them, reducing the possibility of the spread of usual infant diseases. If you look at average family size from a slightly later time, when there's more info, this just doesn't make sense. 5) Forget stress and malnutrition--just plain hard work can interrupt menses. During track season, it wasn't unusual for athlete's periods to half, and low fat percentage (from lots of hard work) can do the same. Say a woman came over in 1611 and married. Her first child was born, say, in 1612. She nursed it for 2 years, meaning no more possible babies until 1615, when she had a stillborn child. Hubby died that year, and she doesn't marry again until 1616. Baby #3 born fine in 1618. By 1622, she has 3 kids but loses the oldest and hubby #2 to the fever (they fled to Jamestown before the massacre). In 1624, she marries again, and when the guy with the census comes around, she has a four-year-old and a six-year- old, neither of whom he bothers to record! I have 2 ancestors who were born between 1611 and 1620 in VA, and one of my ancestresses had already borne 3 healthy children by 1623. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html