17th century oil painting by Simon de VliegerWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM
Canadian pioneers seemed to know they had a whole new country to populate: the first women to settle in the land birthed more children and had more grandchildren than the women that arrived in later years, according to a study published last week (November 3) in Science.
Data from the parish councils of Charlevoix and Saguenay Lac Saint-Jean, an area some 170 kilometers north of Quebec home to dairy farms, small villages, and some of the best-kept marriage records, according to BBC News, revealed that women who arrived in the first wave of Canadian immigration in the 17th and 18th centuries had 15 percent more children than those who moved to the country just a few decades later. Those women’s children also had more kids, suggesting that they inherited the higher fertility.
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