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Here's a simple chart- keep in mind it's an average. Many many people in the 19th century lived to much older ages. Just do your own genealogy and you'll find out!!!!
READ the explanation at the top- the numbers given are additional years to live- not ages. Also, understand the enormous difference between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age 20 or 40 or 70. Yes, babies died more often before antibiotics, but that doesn't mean most people died at 40.
In my own genealogy (several thousand names that go back into the 1600s) average age at death for men is 64 with a max of 104- for women 65 with max of 97. I realize it's a sample of one person's genealogy but I think you'll find it's not far off at all should you look at your own database.
That chart does not provide the number of people who attained those ages, only the expected years of life for someone who attained those ages. Looking at the 1850, a male born in 1850 had a life expectancy of 38.3. If made it to 10, his life expectancy was 48. We don't know how many were in either category.
Average life expectancy is just that, an average of everyone. If three people died at 1, 21 and 80, their average lifespan was 34.
I once did a search to find out how long my ancestors lived in Portugal that were born between 1730-1775 and the average was 73 for the women and 67 for the men and most lived on the same group of remote islands. I found a few who died in their forties but that wasn't the norm and one man that lived to be 105.
I am sure folks already realize this.............but it is important to keep in mind that those who died younger than there mid-30s, are going to be less likely to have as many kids, and thus fewer living descendants to track them. This is probably even truer for women.
Many of the recent "discoveries" in my family tree were identifying 1st wives who died young for known male line ancestors. In a few cases, the tree was "wrong" because the second or third wife lived far longer and ended up being remembered as the parents/grandparents of the future generations. Based on marriage dates, we were able to conclude these forgotten women were our blood line ancestors.
You would think with modern Technology and advances in the Medical Field there would be a big jump in life expectancy
today...I am not finding that to be the case really.
Our ancestors didn't consume fast food, genetically modified foods, and soda like we do today. The only reason we live as long as we do is due to the advances in modern technology and medicine.
That chart does not provide the number of people who attained those ages, only the expected years of life for someone who attained those ages. Looking at the 1850, a male born in 1850 had a life expectancy of 38.3. If made it to 10, his life expectancy was 48. We don't know how many were in either category.
Average life expectancy is just that, an average of everyone. If three people died at 1, 21 and 80, their average lifespan was 34.
Yes average, but think about it, does that mean you're likely to die at 34? That is where looking at an average is misleading.
There is also life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at 20 and 40 and 60. Life expectancy at birth was lower due to much greater infant mortality. But that is also somewhat irrelevant since women often had 5- 12 children- some would live and live a relatively long life.
Thomas Jefferson, born in 1743, lived to be be 83. Was he highly unusual- not at all. It was common. Even the bible mentions "three score and ten" or 70 years.
My point is that people think that there weren't a lot of old people around.
People get upset over the silliest things nowadays. I build my tree on Ancestry and never even noticed what the OP stated in the 1st post. To me, Ancestry.com is a tool to build ones family tree with documents either you or they provide.
Your family tree, if it is detailed and accurate, speaks for itself when it comes to life expectancies and mortality. Ancestry.com is a private company owned by Permira Advisers LLP with major investments from GIC Private Limited (a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore) and Silver Lake (a private equity firm), they are not peer-reviewed journals.
Maybe you should write a letter to Ancestry in Utah and explain your concern with them and their website, I hear they love feedback!
That chart does not provide the number of people who attained those ages, only the expected years of life for someone who attained those ages. Looking at the 1850, a male born in 1850 had a life expectancy of 38.3. If made it to 10, his life expectancy was 48. We don't know how many were in either category.
Average life expectancy is just that, an average of everyone. If three people died at 1, 21 and 80, their average lifespan was 34.
For the chart, that might be right but the original quote is supposed to be an average of people who survived beyond age 20. So the person who died at 1 wouldn’t be included, making the average about 50, not 34. Someone who survived to age 20 should have a much higher life expectancy than the overall average of all ages. Even in the Middle Ages, someone who survived to age 21 had a life expectancy of 64, whereas including child and infant deaths, the average life expectancy was only 30: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
“Life expectancy increases with age as the individual survives the higher mortality rates associated with childhood. For instance, the table above listed the life expectancy at birth among 13th-century English nobles at 30. Having survived until the age of 21, a male member of the English aristocracy in this period could expect to live:
1200–1300: to age 64
1300–1400: to age 45 (because of the bubonic plague)
1400–1500: to age 69
1500–1550: to age 71”
Unfortunately, the Wikipedia page doesn’t specify life expectancy for adults (excluding children) for the 19th century, but the overall average is 40 which is consistent with the original quote saying around 39, so the quote seems to be using stats for all ages, yet wrongly claims it’s only for people age 20+. The life expectancy for those surviving to age 20 should be much higher. Sounds like someone just got mixed up and included the wrong stats for what they were referring to. Hollytree is correct, it’s definitely an error on Ancestry’s blog’s part, but the authors are only human after all, and the article is from 2015 and I haven’t seen that quote ever used again since: https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/what-w...200-years-ago/ (blog seems to be down at the moment, but hopefully fixed later).
Here's a simple chart- keep in mind it's an average. Many many people in the 19th century lived to much older ages. Just do your own genealogy and you'll find out!!!!
One of my g-g-grandmother during the 19th century actually lived across three centuries!! It's possible: She was born in 1798 and died in 1901. She was 103 when she died.
This side of family seems to have good genes. Almost everyone lives into their 90's.
Take the Founding Fathers of this country as a good example of life expectancy during that period. They had no magical way of living long lives, yet the majority by far lived into their 60s and 70s with many still living into their 80s and some into their 90s. In fact, an equal amount died in their 30s as did in their 90s. Many were in their early 20s when they signed the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson died at 83, John Adams was 90, Samuel Adams 81, James Madison was 85, Ben Franklin died at 84, James Monroe was 73 and Washington was 67. There are many others that lived long lives to ages not unlike the life expectancy today.
Though not a founding father, Daniel Boone a frontiersman died at 85 in the year 1820. He lived most of his life in small log cabins and lived a hard life off the land.
This is not an anomaly. People were very capable of living long lives before modern medicine. Keep in mind many lived where winters were cold and summers hot without air conditioning and other things that now keep us comfortable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:D...ng_Fathers.svg
Last edited by marino760; 12-17-2018 at 05:39 AM..
Here's a simple chart- keep in mind it's an average. Many many people in the 19th century lived to much older ages. Just do your own genealogy and you'll find out!!!!
READ the explanation at the top- the numbers given are additional years to live- not ages. Also, understand the enormous difference between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age 20 or 40 or 70. Yes, babies died more often before antibiotics, but that doesn't mean most people died at 40.
In my own genealogy (several thousand names that go back into the 1600s) average age at death for men is 64 with a max of 104- for women 65 with max of 97. I realize it's a sample of one person's genealogy but I think you'll find it's not far off at all should you look at your own database.
The problem with anecdotal cases like this is the data you are looking at can be self selecting and biased compared to averages. For example if we look back at ancestors X generations ago clearly our ancestors were one who survived enough and succeeded enough (as a biological animal) to breed and have offspring that then did the same.
It's kind of like people who look at something well made in the past, say a chair that is 100 years old and says how great things were made when compared to a $10 ikea chair falling apart a few years after fashioned. Naturally the thing surviving 100 years was an example of a quality piece made from that time, because it's still there. So choosing it as an example is self selecting and biased in comparison even if you don't realize it. On the other hand you can in fact find amazingly well constructed chairs that are instead quite expensive that will last just as long (or longer, consider the capability of easier metal fab or super strong durable composites etc, again if you pay for it). 100 years ago they made all sorts of things that were of poor quality too, you can't compare them because they didn't survive... just like you can't compare genealogical lines that had below average life expectancies in many cases because they didn't survive.
Low average life spans doesn't mean there weren't people who lived just as old as they do today, just that it was far less on average. Many people will live long lives unless X disease, condition, virus, or sickness ends that life. Modern medicine has removed many of these things, just consider massive diseases that ended lives on a massive scale of all ages that are not a thread to many places anymore.
You have to be careful with anecdotal data in genealogy vs broad statistics.
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