History, Legends and Lore

A family perspective

Young Brides and Young Mothers: Three Centuries of Malott Women

How old were the women of this family when they married, and when their first child was born? Did the answer change between Gideon’s day and our grandparents’? The dates gathered on this site are enough to take a first look.

How this was worked out

For every woman on the site with a known year of birth, we looked for two things: the year she married, and the year her first known child was born. Subtracting her birth year gives her age at each. Thirty-five women have a usable age at a first child and twenty-one a usable age at marriage, from Marie Martijn, Gideon’s wife, born in 1622, to women born in the 1930s. They are the Malott daughters and the women who married into the family, the other half of every family.

Because only years are used, any single age may be off by one. To keep a few unusual records from pulling the results around, the tables below use the median, the middle value when the ages are lined up in order.

What the dates show

Age at marriage and at first known child, by the year each woman was bornEach circle is a woman’s age at her first known child; each triangle is her age at marriage. In every period most fall between 17 and 25.10152025303540451600165017001750180018501900age 20Christine Peters: first known child at 20Christine Peters: married at 17Lou Ann Stratton: first known child at 21Lou Ann Stratton: married at 19Annie Luiza South: first known child at 19Annie Luiza South: married at 17Mary (surname unknown): first known child at 38Ellen Marlatt: first known child at 43Mary "Polly" Sipes: first known child at 37Cathernie (surname unknown): first known child at 31Elizabeth Malott: married at 24Elizabeth Marlatt: first known child at 18Raharina (surname unknown): first known child at 20Sarah Reeves: first known child at 21Ann Lane: first known child at 20Ann Lane: married at 20Christance Billeau: first known child at 22Christance Billeau: married at 20Sarah Ann Tracy: first known child at 18Sarah Ann Tracy: married at 15Catherine Malott: first known child at 21Catherine Malott: married at 20Catherine Maple: first known child at 29Catherine Maple: married at 24Mary Wanda Malott: married at 18Christina Jones Marllatt: married at 19Marie Bellemain: first known child at 31Marie Bellemain: married at 30Anna Myrtle Meece: married at 21Mary "Polly" Sipes: first known child at 25Sarah Malott: married at 31Eharine Carmen Jeffers: first known child at 19Eharine Carmen Jeffers: married at 18Elizabeth "Betsy" Mellot: first known child at 19Lieu Fiondley Paralee Sanders: first known child at 20Mildred Adams: first known child at 17Mildred Adams: married at 16Laura (Lora) Malott: first known child at 17Laura (Lora) Malott: married at 17Olive M. Malott: first known child at 26Abigail Mellott: first known child at 18Susannah Armstrong: first known child at 27Margaret Eveline Waits: first known child at 23Margaret Eveline Waits: married at 22Laura F. E. Deshong: first known child at 25Hannah Malott: first known child at 20Hannah Malott: married at 17Mary A. (surname unknown): first known child at 16Sarah Welch: first known child at 20Mary M. Quackenbush: first known child at 19Mary M. Quackenbush: married at 17Jemmirua (surname unknown): first known child at 23Marie Martijn Martin: first known child at 23Marie Martijn Martin: married at 22Abigail Truax: first known child at 25Elizabeth McBroom: first known child at 17Year the woman was bornAge

Age at first known childAge at marriage

Women bornAge at first known childAge at marriage
1600s23 (5 women)22 (5)
1700–177920 (5)18½ (6)
1780–181922* (6 of 13)—
1820–186920 (7)19 (5)
1870–193519 (5)18 (5)
All periods21 (35)19 (21)

Median ages. *For women born 1780–1819 the figure uses only the six families with four or more recorded children; counting all thirteen gives 25, for the reason explained below. No marriage dates are recorded for women born in those years.

The striking thing is how little changed. Across three hundred years, from Huguenot refugees in New Amsterdam to farm families in Ohio and Illinois, the typical woman in this family married at about 18 to 21 and had her first child at about 20 to 23. Where both dates are known, the first child usually arrived within a year or two of the wedding.

The family also ran a little young. United States census figures put the typical American woman’s age at first marriage at about 22 in 1890 and 20 to 21 by the 1950s. The women on this site generally married a year or two earlier than that.

The earliest generation was not the youngest. Gideon’s wife Marie Martijn married at 22, and Marie Bellemain, the wife of Jean Pierre Mellot, at about 30, a pattern typical of the Dutch and French Protestant families of the time, who often waited to marry until a couple could set up a household of their own. The youngest marriages came in two clusters: among women born around the time of the Revolution, and again among those born in the early 1900s.

Married before twenty

More than a third of the women with usable dates married, became mothers, or both, before they turned twenty.

WomanBornMarriedAge
Sarah Ann Tracy1735175015
Mildred Adams1910192616
Christine Petersc. 16581675about 17
Mary M. Quackenbush1753177017
Hannah Malott1765178217
Laura (Lora) Malott1850186717
Annie Luiza South1904192117
Eharine Carmen Jeffers1903192118
Mary Wanda Malott1931194918
Christina Jones Marllatt1827184619
Lou Ann Stratton1863188219

Sarah Ann Tracy, who married Peter Malott at about fifteen, went on to raise a large family before she and several of her children were captured on the Ohio River around 1780 (see Captured on the Ohio). Mildred Adams married at sixteen in 1926 and had her first child the next year.

The records also give Hanna Howe a marriage at fifteen in 1701, but her first recorded child was not born until 1716. Children born in between are probably missing, so she is left out of the tables and figures here.

Mothers before twenty

WomanBornFirst known childAge
Mary A. (surname unknown)1823183916
Elizabeth McBroom1837185417
Laura (Lora) Malott1850186717
Mildred Adams1910192717
Sarah Ann Tracy1735175318
Abigail Mellott1786180418
Elizabeth Marlatt1809182718
Mary M. Quackenbush1753177219
Elizabeth “Betsy” Mellot1784180319
Eharine Carmen Jeffers1903192219
Annie Luiza South1904192319

Laura (Lora) Malott married and had her first child in the same year, 1867, when she was seventeen.

What the numbers can’t tell us

  • “First known child” is only the first child on record. Babies who died in infancy often went unrecorded, especially before 1800, so the true age at a first birth was probably a little younger than shown.
  • Some families are only partly recorded. Three women born between 1784 and 1801 show only one or two children, born when they were 37 to 43. Their earlier children are almost certainly missing, which is why the 1780–1819 figure uses only the better-documented families.
  • The groups are small. Each period has only five to thirteen women, so one woman can move a median by a year.
  • A few dates are probably wrong. Four records were set aside: Jeanne Robbe, whose estimated birth year would make her a bride at eleven; Elizabeth Morgan, whose first child is dated three years before her marriage; Elizabeth Willcox, whose only recorded child would have been born when she was 57; and Hanna Howe, above.
  • Many women have no birth year. About seventy mothers on the site, most of them wives who married into the family, have no known year of birth and could not be counted.

Every new birth or marriage date makes this picture sharper. If you have a date for one of the women on this site, especially a wife recorded only by her first name, please get in touch.