Family history in numbers

Statistics

What two and a half centuries of records say about how the family lived: how long, how many, when, where and under what names. Every chart is drawn from the 2,410 people in the tree, and each one says which of them it counts.

How to read these numbers. Living people appear without dates, so anything measured in years rests on the 841 people with a recorded birth year and the 638 with both birth and death years. For recent birth cohorts most people are still alive, so their death statistics describe only those who died young; those cohorts are shown in grey. Sex was recorded for parents and inferred from the first name for 554 children; 368 people have neither.

People in the tree

2,410

1,513 descend from Jean Goyetche

Generations

Largest: generation 7, 414 people

Median age at death

638 people with both dates

Longest life

106

Martha Marcelline Goyetche, 1880–1986

Largest family

children of Norbert Goyetche and Julie LeBlanc

Died before five, born 1926 or earlier

1 in 13

54 of the 703 born by then, counting the rest as survivors

Nine generations

Jean Goyetche's nine children became 61 grandchildren, and the family kept roughly tripling for two generations before growth slowed. Generation 7, born around 1966, is the largest. The small ninth generation is not a decline: its members are children today, mostly unrecorded.

People per generation

Direct descendants of Jean Goyetche, 1,514 people

Median birth year of each generation beneath the bar.

Table

Generation	People	Median birth year	Earliest	Latest
1	1	1,763	1,763	1,763
2	9	1,805	1,793	1,817
3	61	1,841	1,810	1,866
4	181	1,879	1,847	1,908
5	237	1,910	1,886	1,940
6	339	1,941	1,918	1,963
7	414	1,966	1,943	1,989
8	262	1,995	1,979	2,005
9	10	–	–	–

Births by decade

Recorded births climb through the nineteenth century and peak in the 1900s with 99. The fall after 1930 is not fewer babies: people born after 1926 with no death record are treated as living and carry no dates, so those decades are mostly invisible here.

Recorded births per decade

841 people with a birth year

Grey columns are decades where most people are still living and undated.

Table

Decade	Births	Complete
1760s	9	yes
1770s	3	yes
1780s	5	yes
1790s	10	yes
1800s	6	yes
1810s	12	yes
1820s	16	yes
1830s	21	yes
1840s	43	yes
1850s	19	yes
1860s	45	yes
1870s	84	yes
1880s	81	yes
1890s	65	yes
1900s	99	yes
1910s	90	yes
1920s	67	yes
1930s	40	mostly living
1940s	45	mostly living
1950s	16	mostly living
1960s	10	mostly living
1970s	6	mostly living
1980s	4	mostly living
1990s	0	mostly living
2000s	2	mostly living

Sons and daughters

Among the 2,042 people whose sex is known, 51.9% are male and 48.1% female. A small male surplus is typical of parish-era records, where sons were a little more likely to be written down, and a ratio this close to even says the records are reasonably complete.

Sex of everyone in the tree

2,410 people

Male
Female
Not recorded

44%

41%

15%

554 of these were inferred from the first name, where the name is used by one sex only elsewhere in the tree.

Table

Sex	People	Of which inferred
Male	1,059	318
Female	983	236
Not recorded	368	0

How long they lived

Half of the women with recorded dates lived past 74, half of the men past 69. The averages are lower (65 and 61) because they are pulled down by the children who died in infancy. Of the 703 people born 1926 or earlier, whose lives are all complete, 54, about one in 13, died before their fifth birthday. That counts everyone without a recorded early death as a survivor, so it is a floor: family records miss infant deaths far more often than they invent them. Across the whole tree the share is one in 34, but most of the tree was born after 1926, when child deaths had become rare and the record barely carries them. Someone who reached twenty could expect to see about 74, and 31% of recorded lives reached eighty.

Median age at death, women

285 women; mean 65.3

Median age at death, men

312 men; mean 60.9

Median, if they reached 20

Both sexes, deaths at 20 or older

Lived to 80 or more

31%

198 people

Age at death

638 people with birth and death years, by sex

Men
Women

The two peaks are the shape of pre-modern mortality: a cluster of deaths in infancy, then a long rise to the seventies and eighties. Women outnumber men in every band from 75 upward.

Table

Age at death	Men	Women
Under 1	18	13
1–4	7	9
5–14	6	4
15–24	8	7
25–34	17	10
35–44	14	14
45–54	24	18
55–64	40	21
65–74	50	49
75–84	81	64
85–94	40	60
95 and over	7	16

Lifespan by birth cohort

Median age at death with the middle half of each cohort shaded

Cohorts born from 1860–79 fared worst, when the family was largest and infant mortality highest; those born 1920–39 did best (median 76). Cohorts from 1940 on are incomplete, since most of their members are alive.

Table

Born	People	Median	Lower quartile	Upper quartile	Median if reached 20
1760–79	7	73	66.5	82	73
1780–99	9	76	73	80	76
1800–19	14	73	59.8	81.5	73
1820–39	25	73	39	83	75
1840–59	45	74	39	83	78
1860–79	85	64	9	79	74.5
1880–99	95	66	29.5	84.5	73
1900–19	164	75.5	63	87	78
1920–39	107	76	63	83.5	76
1940–59	60	59	48	69.3	60
1960–79	16	37.5	28	51.3	41
1980–99	4	9	0	21.5	32
2000–19	2	0	0	0	–

Children who died before five

Share of everyone born in each period who died before five; those without a recorded early death count as survivors

One in 8 of those born 1860–79 died before their fifth birthday. The share falls steeply for those born after 1900, as it did across Canada. Later cohorts are faint: most of their people are living and private, so their shares rest on few records.

Table

Born	People born	Died under five	Share
1760–79	12	0	0
1780–99	15	0	0
1800–19	18	0	0
1820–39	37	1	3
1840–59	62	4	6
1860–79	129	17	13
1880–99	146	17	12
1900–19	189	13	7
1920–39	107	2	2
1940–59	61	2	3
1960–79	16	2	13
1980–99	4	2	–
2000–19	2	2	–

The longest lives

Oldest recorded ages at death

1106Martha Marcelline Goyetche1880–1986
2105Marie Celina (Minnie) Bona1903–2009
3100Ida Artemise Goyetche1915–2016
499Letitia Agnes Zinck1893–1992
598Henri (Harry) Landry1891–1989
697Eliza Goyetche1856–1953
797Marie Adelaide Goyetche1911–2009
897Anita Lavinia Rhodenizer1911–2008
997John James Goyeche1916–2013
1097Loretta Mary Goyetche1925–2022

Families

Among the 527 families with at least one recorded child, the average is 3.1 children, but the distribution has a long tail: 21 families had ten or more. Families formed in the 1860s and 1870s were the largest; by the 1930s the typical family had settled at about three children.

Children per family

527 families with at least one recorded child

Families with no recorded children are left out, since the records do not distinguish a childless couple from one whose children were never entered.

Table

Children	Families
1	118
2	175
3	103
4	36
5	32
6	14
7	16
8	4
9	8
10	7
11	3
12	3
13	4
14	1
15	3

Family size over time

Mean children per family, by the decade the parents married

Families with a recorded marriage year and at least one child. Early cohorts rest on a handful of families each.

Table

Married	Families	Mean children	Largest
1780–99	2	4	7
1800–19	3	3	5
1820–39	7	6.7	12
1840–59	8	5.5	10
1860–79	20	5.9	15
1880–99	16	4.7	15
1900–19	27	6.6	15
1920–39	25	4.2	9
1940–59	36	4.2	12
1960–79	8	2.9	5
1980–99	3	1.3	2

The largest families

The ten largest of 21 families with ten or more recorded children

115Norbert Goyetche and Julie LeBlancm. 1866
215Louis Goyetche and Marie Elizabeth Boudrotm. 1891
315Noel Burke and Marie Marguerite (Minnie) Poirierm. 1901
414Alcide Honore Goyetche and Alexina Rose Samsonm. 1905
513Louis (Joyce) Goyetche and Marie Landrym. 1875
613Jean Baptiste Goyetche and Marie Elizabeth Beatrice Lavachem. 1904
713Mark Matthias Maloney and Catherine Jeanne Goyetchem. 1904
813Alfred Joseph (Frederick) Burke and Wilma Catherine MacInnes
912Francois Regis Coste and Martine (Mathilde) Goyetchem. 1824
1012Stanislas Goyetche and Lucie Boucherm. 1830

Age at first marriage

Median age of brides and grooms, by the decade they married

Grooms
Brides

Across the whole record, grooms were typically 26 and brides 22, a gap of about 4 years that barely moved in two centuries. Cohorts with fewer than five marriages are omitted.

Table

Married	Grooms (median)	Grooms (n)	Brides (median)	Brides (n)
1760–79	–	2	–	2
1780–99	–	2	–	2
1800–19	–	3	–	3
1820–39	23	7	20	7
1840–59	28	11	22	11
1860–79	26	20	25	21
1880–99	24	26	22	28
1900–19	25.5	40	22	46
1920–39	27.5	24	23	29
1940–59	27	42	23	42
1960–79	23.5	6	22	9
1980–99	–	2	–	1
2000–19	–	0	–	1

When babies arrived

Births were not spread evenly through the year. Allowing for the length of each month, Oct births ran 1.25 times the yearly average and Feb births 0.65 times. A late-summer and autumn peak means conceptions in the winter, a pattern seen in fishing and farming communities across the North Atlantic.

Births per day of the month

677 people with a full birth date

The line is the yearly average, 1.85 births per day.

Table

Month	Births	Per day
Jan	58	1.9
Feb	34	1.2
Mar	61	2.0
Apr	50	1.7
May	54	1.7
Jun	51	1.7
Jul	56	1.8
Aug	67	2.2
Sep	53	1.8
Oct	72	2.3
Nov	55	1.8
Dec	66	2.1

Where they were born

Arichat and Cape Auget on Isle Madame account for most recorded births, and Nova Scotia held 100% of the cohort born 1840–59. From the 1880s the family followed the fishery and the mills to Gloucester, Boston and Plymouth, and later spread across Canada: of those born 1940–59, 57% were born in Nova Scotia.

Birthplaces

716 people with a recorded birthplace, by town

Towns as written in the records; Arichat and West Arichat are kept apart as the records keep them.

Table

Town	Births
Arichat	289
Cape Auget	70
D'Escousse	23
West Arichat	22
River Bourgeois	22
Poirierville	21
Halifax	20
Louisdale	18
Charlottetown	15
Gloucester	14
Montréal	13
Petit de Grat	12

Leaving Isle Madame

Region of birth by birth cohort

Nova Scotia
New England
Elsewhere in Canada
Elsewhere in the US
France
Other

Cohorts with fewer than ten located births are left out. Regions are read from the place as written, so a bare town name without a province counts as Other.

Table

Born	People	Nova Scotia	New England	Elsewhere in Canada	Elsewhere in the US	France	Other
1760–79	12	75	0	8	0	17	0
1800–19	15	100	0	0	0	0	0
1820–39	27	96	0	4	0	0	0
1840–59	58	100	0	0	0	0	0
1860–79	124	98	1	1	0	0	1
1880–99	130	86	5	6	0	0	2
1900–19	165	76	13	6	3	0	1
1920–39	82	59	16	18	5	0	2
1940–59	42	57	14	29	0	0	0

What they were called

Marie leads every list: 133 of the 935 women carry it as a first name, usually paired with a second one in the Acadian way (Marie Louise, Marie Sophie). Joseph does the same work for the men. The shift from Jean to John, and from Marie to Mary, traces the family's move into English-speaking Nova Scotia and New England.

First names, women

935 named women

Table

Name	Women
Marie	133
Mary	49
Marguerite	16
Elizabeth	14
Julie	13
Margaret	11
Anne	11
Ann	10
Catherine	10
Shirley	9

First names, men

1,005 named men

Table

Name	Men
Joseph	72
John	42
Charles	30
David	26
William	24
James	24
Michael	24
Jean	22
Robert	21
Paul	19

Surnames

534 family names in the tree

Goyetche, Goyeche and Goyetch are one family spelled three ways. See the full surname list.

Table

Surname	People
Goyetche	519
Burke	61
Boudrot	46
Babin	46
Landry	44
Decoste	41
Goyeche	36
Boudreau	34
LeBlanc	34
Coste	30
Touesnard	30
Fougere	29

Method

Ages are computed from full dates where both are known and from years otherwise. Cohorts are twenty-year bins by birth year (or marriage year), starting with Jean Goyetche's own; a few in-law ancestors born earlier are left out of the cohort charts. Medians are preferred to means because a handful of infant deaths or centenarians moves a mean a long way in groups this small. Where a chart's bars rest on fewer than ten records they are drawn in grey or omitted, and every chart has a table beneath it with the exact counts. The data has the gaps of any family record: dates are missing for many of the earliest people, and the youngest generations are mostly living and therefore undated here.

Month	Births	Per day
Jan	58	1.9
Feb	34	1.2
Mar	61	2.0
Apr	50	1.7
May	54	1.7
Jun	51	1.7
Jul	56	1.8
Aug	67	2.2
Sep	53	1.8
Oct	72	2.3
Nov	55	1.8
Dec	66	2.1

Month	Births	Per day
Jan	58	1.9
Feb	34	1.2
Mar	61	2.0
Apr	50	1.7
May	54	1.7
Jun	51	1.7
Jul	56	1.8
Aug	67	2.2
Sep	53	1.8
Oct	72	2.3
Nov	55	1.8
Dec	66	2.1

Month	Births	Per day
Jan	58	1.9
Feb	34	1.2
Mar	61	2.0
Apr	50	1.7
May	54	1.7
Jun	51	1.7
Jul	56	1.8
Aug	67	2.2
Sep	53	1.8
Oct	72	2.3
Nov	55	1.8
Dec	66	2.1