How Big Were Your Ancestors? (genes, person, related, records)
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Hmm.. I don't actually know how tall most of my ancestors were. Those I know top out about 5' 6", we are not a tall people. One of my grandfathers was five feet nothin'. Out of my hundreds of cousins/uncles/aunts/nieces/nephews I could probably count the number of people over six feet on one hand. Can't think of anyone over 6' 2" or 6' 3". The ceilings in my grandparents and great-grandparents houses were only 6' high so I guess I can deduce that 6'+ would have been considered freakishly tall for this area in the 1800s.
My dad and his family were in the 5'7-9" range, and my husband is barely 6 foot -- 5 foot 11 and 3/4's as he loves to tell people..... and my mother always bought him clothing at the big and tall store.
But my family is pretty long lived generally. The weird thing is the great grandparents generation. That whole generation died young. My great grandmother was barely out of her teens (I think she died at 22) her sister died in her 30's, my great grandfather was in his thirties..... his brothers and sisters weren't long lived for the most part....
I was always told that that Americans of the 18th and 19th century were smaller than we are on average. According the tour guides there, this explained the shorter beds and smaller clothes displayed in museums and at historic sites. However, in looking through my family tree all the way back to Colonial days, many of the guys in it are described as 5'11 or taller, often weighing about 200 pounds. That's bigger than I am. Perhaps the smaller people back then were more recent immigrants from underdeveloped countries who did not get the same level of nutrition? Just curious what others have noted in their research.
My Scots-Irish ancestors, all the men were well over 6 feet, and thin.
quote:"Life expectancy is generally reported for a group born in a certain time frame and reported as life expectancy at birth. "
Looking at life expectancy from birth is not a good way to do it for our ancestors. Before antibiotics many children died and that is where the myth of dying at 40 comes from, since the statistics are then skewed by showing the average.
Survival from older ages in colonial times, for example, were similar to ages at death for persons who were born into the twentieth century. Look at ages of death for our early presidents- for one example- many lived into their 90s. It is only quite recently that ages at death have gone up by 5 or more years.
I understand that the "people were smaller in the old days" thing is a myth, but then I'm interested in why antique Civil War and Revoutionary War uniforms are usually pretty small. You might have seen them on Antiques Roadshow or Pawn Stars if you don't go to antique shows yourself. Even if you go on tours of historic buildings where they might have old uniforms on display, they all seem really small.
The uniforms made for grown men are often what we would today consider large child-size. Sure, some may have shrunk from washing or age, but all of them?
My mother's side were not tall. My father's side was mixed...his father had height, his mothers...not so much. My grandpa and his brothers were 6'4"-6'6"...Dad was 6'4". None of my brothers were over 6'2" tall. My husband and I are all fairly tall..my husband, at 6'0" is the tallest in his family. I am nearly 5'9" tall. My children are as follows 27 yo son 5'9", 24 yo daughter 5'6", 21 yo son 5'5", 15 yo son 6'1" and still growing. LOL They've all been raised on the same diet..for the most part and the funny thing is...my smallest son, was the tallest at birth and my tallest son was the shortest and smallest baby at birth. It's funny how things work out!
I understand that the "people were smaller in the old days" thing is a myth, but then I'm interested in why antique Civil War and Revoutionary War uniforms are usually pretty small. You might have seen them on Antiques Roadshow or Pawn Stars if you don't go to antique shows yourself. Even if you go on tours of historic buildings where they might have old uniforms on display, they all seem really small.
Well for the revolution I can see how that might be. The folks who wore uniforms were continental army soldiers more heavily drawn from cities where people weren't quite as healthy and were of somewhat different genetic stock than non-uniformed country militiamen. Granted this is just a SWAG.
I think people were smaller then because they were not as healthy. I know they were not as obese as a lot of Americans are now. Thus the "smaller" perception?
No, it's not simply today's obesity thing that makes us think the uniforms look small. I'm a woman who wears like a size 6-8 and some old military uniforms for fullgrown men would be small on me.
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