Twelve Children of George and Margaret Lysle ~ 52 Ancestors #41

I was looking for the most children in one family for this week's theme and without going back to colonial New England, I think that my third great-grandparents, George Lysle and Margaret McIlwaine had the most children of any ancestor in the past 200 years or so.

George Lysle, Sr.

Margaret (McIlwaine) Lysle

The very basic information about the family comes from a printed family tree from the late 1930s that has been passed down in the family which I shared in May 2013.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Lysle Plot at Union Dale Cemetery Pittsburgh

The last plot we visited during our August 2017 visit to Union Dale Cemetery in Pittsburgh was the Lysle family plot, burial location for yet another pair of second-great-grandparents, a pair of third-great-grandparents, and a fourth-great-grandmother.

In the middle of the obelisk is the name Lysle:

The plot has nineteen gravestones.

Margaret McIlwaine Had Twelve Children - 52 Ancestors #37

For this week's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from blogger Amy Crow Johnson of No Story Too Small, the theme is Large Family.

I have plenty of ancestors with large families, which I think of as a dozen or more children. (Of course, I'm thinking pre-twentieth century families.)

My third great grandmother, Margaret McIlwaine, of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, had twelve children. What I know about her is mostly from census records. Her name is also on the 1937-38 printed Lysle Family Tree of which I have several copies.

I find Margaret in the U.S. Federal census for each of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. She was the wife of George Lysle, whom I wrote about here. I wrote about her husband's 1877 death in a train accident here.

In the 1880 U.S. Census, "Margret Lysle" was a widow:

1880 U.S. Census. Place: Allegheny, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T9_1087;
Page: 382.2; E.D.: 14; Line: 15: Household of Margaret Lysle

She lived at 76 Washington Street, Allegheny City, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, with three unmarried daughters: Mary Ann, Caroline, and Elizabeth (Eliza). Also living in the household was her youngest son, the namesake of her husband, George, and his family: Mary H. (Marion Helen), and two grandchildren: Margret (Marguerite) and George B. There were also three servants.

George, Jr. is a coal merchant, as was his father (and many others in the family).

The 1880 census is great for the information it provides. Looking closely, you'll see that there is a tick mark before her occupation of "Keeping House" - this is in the column for "widowed (or divorced D)." Further along the row, there is another tick mark. This column is entitled: "Maimed, Crippled, Bedridden, or otherwise disabled." I don't know what Margaret's disability was but it possibly contributed to her cause of death; she died six months after this census was taken.