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Question: How likely is it a woman in Birmingham, England having a child at the age of 49 in the 1800's!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The average age of menopause in industrial, 19th-century Europe was 45, although there was a trend towards later menopause towards the end of the century!. Those women who reached menopause also had a good chance of living into their seventies and eighties!.

Women who delayed childbirth lived longer than those who married earlier; however, most women didn't reach menarche until about 17!. Not waiting between childbirths also increased a woman's chances of dying in childbirth!. At the age of 50, the number of children a woman had given birth to also had an impact on her eventual age of death!.

Since no reliable contraceptives existed for the majority of women, it was quite likely that a woman in Birmingham, England, could have had a child at age 49 in the 1800's!. Sometimes, however, these "births" covered for a daughter who had a child out of wedlock!.

I'm 56, so many of my great grandmothers would have last been giving birth in the 1880s!. Accordingly, your question made me want to analyze my own ancestors, so I added up the ages at which my great grandmothers last gave birth: 40, 35, 37, and 26 (all in the state of Texas), coming up with the average age of 34!.5!. I also analyzed my great, great grandmothers' age at the time they last gave birth: 30, 23 (five children by this age), 45, 44, 35, 38, 40, and 34 (in Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada, respectively), coming up with the average age of 36!.3!. All but one of these women survived her last child birth, and she died at age 40, and her husband was a physician in Georgia!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Not impossible at all!. Not too LIKELY but not impossible!. It is also very possible she may have been a grandmother to the child and raised as hers!. It is not like hospitals today, where birth certificates are issued, based on records submitted by independent source!.
You need to work with all possible records, to see if something comes up as a conflict!. Records are ALWAYS the foundation for research!.!. which is not to say that some records along the way are incorrect or falsified!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Just to say that it wasn't uncommon at that time, when an unmarried woman got pregnant, for one of her married female relations e!.g!. her mother or married sister, to register the child as her own, to avoid scandal and save the real mother from being seen as a "fallen woman" and the child from the slur of illegitimacy!. (Both of these were very seriously shameful at the time!.) So these records may not always be true!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

UK answer!.
My great grandma gave birth to her 9th and last child a daughter at the age of 49, so yes it is almost certainly possible!. I double checked her birth certificate and other documents and the information appears to be accurate!. My gran and her fifth daughter were born in Nottingham England!.
Hope this helpsWww@QuestionHome@Com

Quite possible!. My Grandmother was born to her 48 year old Mother!. Great Grandad had written out the names of their offspring, and drawn three lines under it!. Then Grandmother arrived!
When researching my trees!. I never cease to be amazed at how many mothers over 40 gave birth!. In those days, people of working class couldn't afford to get married very young, so perhaps didn't have a first child until late 20s - early 30s!. With no contraception, breeding just went on until curtailed by Mother Nature!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Still laughing!. It's possible, of course!. Then there's the problem I had convincing a very distant cousin, that our common ancestor did not have two children at the ripe old age of 87!. The actual woman who gave birth was the g!.g!.granddaughter of our common ancestor!. She (the distant cousin) never got convinced, and is probably still confused!.

I note all the thumbs down!.!.!.what a pity!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Many of my female ancestors continued having children into their late forties!. My father, the youngest of eleven, was a so-called "change of life" baby, and uncle of a number of nieces and nephews considerably older than he was!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Due to the lack of contraception women had babies later in life and ultimately died because of it, so in answer to your question I'd say quite likelyWww@QuestionHome@Com

Back then, women kept on having child after child, until they died of childbirth, or hit menopause!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Very likely - I have an ancestor who went four years better!. She was born 1797 and her last child Ernest Edwin Hobbs was born Bristol 1850!.
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If she had not finished her menopause she could have had a child and a lot didWww@QuestionHome@Com

Very unlikely, more likely to have died by that age!Www@QuestionHome@Com