Just remember whose family we are talking about. We never get in a big hurry about anything. There is also the possibility that some of those sons were not the first child. But I did some calculations and the most recent three generations, the fathers were all in their 20's but after that, it was 30's and 40's. One of them became a father at 51 and another at 55, That was at a time when most people didn't even live that long.

Here is the timeline. I picked Matt and Ed because they were oldest of their generation. The Howard in line three is me. The other Howard is my grandfather.

Matthew born when Edwin was almost 28.
Edwin was born when Howard was 23.
Howard was born when Julian was 24.
Julian was born when Howard (1878) was about 31.
Howard was born when Samuel was 41.
Samuel was born when Charles was 48.
Charles was born when Cornelius was 51.
Cornelius was born when Thomas was 37.
Thomas was born when William (1635) was 55.
William was born when William (1590) was 45.

Boring stuff, I admit, but it's too hot to go ride my scooter in the parade.
Howard

> > Computers never cease to blow my mind. I sat down here and in about 15 minutes, I traced my ancestors back to my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. (You don't have to count them. I did, and it's six!) His name was William, same as mine, but he was born in England in 1590.
> >
> > For my grandson, who was here this morning, old William is great X 8 grandfather.
> >
> > I have all of that info stashed in a file, but I can find it on the computer quicker.
> > How"middle name"ard
>
> That works out to only 10 generations for (I'm assuming a bit over) 400 years, an average of 40 years between generations. That's surprisingly high to me -- I always figured the average was around 30 years.