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I don't know why Ancestry keeps publishing this- it has been proven wrong over and over again. Makes me really question this company.
"Life Expectancy: The boom in native population in the early 19th century was even more remarkable considering the low life expectancies of the time. By one estimate, a white man who had reached his 20th birthday could expect to live just another 19 years. A white woman at 20 would live, on average, only a total of 38.8 years. If measuring from birth, which counted infant mortality, life expectancy would have been even lower."
What is the correct answer? I know the life expectancy in the USA at that time wasn't great. I've seen numerous cases of family members who immigrated dying in the range of 30-50 years at a much higher rate than where they came from.
I don't know why Ancestry keeps publishing this- it has been proven wrong over and over again. Makes me really question this company.
"Life Expectancy: The boom in native population in the early 19th century was even more remarkable considering the low life expectancies of the time. By one estimate, a white man who had reached his 20th birthday could expect to live just another 19 years. A white woman at 20 would live, on average, only a total of 38.8 years. If measuring from birth, which counted infant mortality, life expectancy would have been even lower."
Are you talking about the silly opinion pieces by self-promoting alternative health and natural healing philosophers based on their own concepts of what should be the case with lifespans in the age before modern medicine, sanitation and consistent food supply, or are you talking the actual data? Because the actual data available is consistent with that quote from Ancestry (if that is from Ancestry). The longest time period we have for great verified data of the lifespan comes from UK records, but US is not far behind. Academic research suggest prior to 1870 NO large area in the world (by continent) had an average lifespan beyond 40 yrs.
Please link your proof so we can see what the data is.
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.
Last edited by Hollytree; 12-13-2018 at 12:15 PM..
Actually I do think that most life expectancy charts for the mid 19th century forward are nearly correct for my own family.
As you noted, babies died a lot, that would pull the average down substantially.
On most lines of my family prior to the 20th century (and even through the mid 20th century) the average "old" person died in their 50s or 60s. I've also never researched a family group (parents/children) where at least one of their children didn't die before the age of 5.
Recently been going back over one of my maternal line families as I'd stopped researching that line because it was so depressing that my distant aunt had 8 children and 7 of them died before the age of 10! Most from oubreaks of vaccine preventable diseases today (primarily diptheria - there was an outbreak in the early 1900s here and 4 of her children died within 2 months!).
I do have some longer living lines - particularly one of my great grandmothers who, herself, lived to be 98. Her mom was 105 when she died and her father was 98 when he died. Her mother died in her 70s in a car accident. That line has VERY long lives in general.
I also have a 3rd great grandmother on my maternal side who lived to be almost 100 years old. She was born about 1852-1858 and died in 1951.
But 3 of her own children died prior to age 20, mostly from TB.
TB, lack of antibiotics as you mentioned, and lack of vaccines along with unsanitary living conditions and poor water quality caused very high mortality rates in the past.
Taking all the children who died into account averaged with people who usually died in their late 60s at the lates in my own family, I can see how 19th century age of death averages would be in the 30s-40s.
I don't know why Ancestry keeps publishing this- it has been proven wrong over and over again. Makes me really question this company.
"Life Expectancy: The boom in native population in the early 19th century was even more remarkable considering the low life expectancies of the time. By one estimate, a white man who had reached his 20th birthday could expect to live just another 19 years. A white woman at 20 would live, on average, only a total of 38.8 years. If measuring from birth, which counted infant mortality, life expectancy would have been even lower."
There's nothing inherently inaccurate about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollytree
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!!!!
When insurance companies began offering life insurance in the early 1880s, they relied on three measures of Life Expectancy based on actuarial data they collected: From Birth, From Age 25 and From Age 65.
The State and federal governments only use From Birth and From Age 65, but some insurance companies still keep data on From Age 25.
The reason for Life Expectancy From Age 25, is many didn't make it to age 25.
You have to remember that averages, or means, are easily skewed. It's best to rely on median data, rather than mean data.
I don't know where you would find data on median age. Perhaps the US Census Bureau has it, but you will find that median age is higher than mean age.
I do have lines in my trees with very low longevity. Those people are dying in their 50s and early 60s, but I have other lines that are very long lived, even before it was fashionable to do so.
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.
I know doing my own genealogy that most of my ancestors lived to be in their 70's and 80's, although some made it to their 90's and a few made it to a hundred or more....but then there were a lot of babies and children who never made it to adulthood to begin with, and there were many who died from TB at early ages.
The babies and children who died before immunizations were given and before antibiotics, etc and people who died from things like TB, typhoid Fever, cholera, plague I think is the big difference.
I have found cousins who died from things like Mumps, Measles and the like...thank goodness we have immunizations for those now, that greatly extend the chances of making it to adulthood.
What do you mean they “keep” publishing it? When I google it, I find one blog article from 2015. When and where have they published it again and again?
It does seem wrong - I don’t know the exact stats but infant and child deaths wouldn’t account for such a low average because they are talking about the average life expectancy for people who survived to age 20, so infant and child deaths aren’t included in that average.
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