Two Memes: 161 and Can You Top This?

There are currently two memes circling the genea-blogging world. The first is the 161 Meme, and I've been tagged by both Jessica Oswalt of Jessica's Genejournal and Chery Kinnick of Nordic Blue for this one. In this meme, you're supposed to go to page 161 of the book you're currently reading and list the 6th sentence on that page. Then you tag five other bloggers to do the same. Well, I'm not currently reading a book, really, which is very unusual for me...usually I have two to four books on my night table. I just finished up Bryan Sykes's The Seven Daughters of Eve, as I'm going through Blaine Bettinger's list of recommended books on DNA. But that title has been returned to the public library. My current reading material is the stack of letters my mother wrote from Alaska to her parents in Michigan from 1966 through 1978. I've just finished up 1970 and will start on 1971 tonight. I guess I could include Kimberly Powell's The Everything Family Tree Book, which I've been referencing since this summer. I'm using it as a guide and recommended reading material for my Intermediate Online Genealogy class coming up this winter, so I'm using it a lot as I write up my curriculum. Page 161 is the beginning of Chapter 13: Branching Out, but there are only four sentences on this page, which summarize the chapter. The last sentence reads, "Religious records, newspapers, obituaries, Social Security records, occupational records, and school records are examples of alternative records that can fill in missing gaps or verify information that you've already found."

For the 161 Meme, I then tag the following five people:

• *Kimberly Powell of About.com: Genealogy
• *T.K. of Before My Time
• *Lee Anders of I Seek Dead People
• *Barbara of Our Carroll Family Genealogy
• *George Geder of Genealogy~Photography~Restoration

The other meme was started by John Newmark of Transylvanian Dutch, and is called "Can You Top This?" Its purpose is to list your most prolific ancestor. John's great-great-grandfather had 22 children with three wives. He gives you extra credit if you show a screen shot from your family tree program to illustrate your ancestor's feat.

Now, John doesn't mention how many children each of his Great-great-grandpa Every's wives gave birth to, but I'm betting that my Abigail FORD outdid his ancestor's wives, even though the total number of children was less than his male ancestor's. My 8th-great-grandfather, Elder John STRONG (c. 1605 - 1699), had 17 children with two wives. His first wife, Margery DEANE, died after giving birth to their second child, who probably died at birth:

His second wife, my ancestor Abigail FORD, gave birth to 15 children, including my ancestor, Samuel STRONG:

So I may not be able to top John's male ancestor, but can anyone out there top my female ancestor?