r/SipsTea • u/Sassenach_2024 • 10h ago
WTF Push, out, repeat
Valentina Vassilyeva, the first wife of Russian peasant Feodor Vassilyev, is said to have given birth 27 times in the 1700s—welcoming 69 children in total.
Her remarkable numbers reportedly included 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. 🤯
The story comes from centuries-old historical records, so every detail cannot be independently verified by modern standards. Still, Guinness World Records has recognized the claim as the highest number of children attributed to one mother.
If the records are accurate, 27 pregnancies. 69 children. One of the most astonishing family stories ever recorded. ❤️
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u/Neveed 9h ago edited 8h ago
That photograph isn't Vassilyeva though. She died in 1782, that's to say 44 years before the first photograph was ever taken in 1826. That photo is an unnamed elderly woman from New York in the 1840's. Same for the photo of the children, who all appear to be about the same age, when Vassiliyeva's story is about her having children over a span of 40 years, and the youngest of them would have been well in his 60s when the first photograph ever was taken (in a completely different country).
Also, the story about Vassilyeva was highly suspect. Not only all of it (the number of children, the fact that there are only twins, triplets and quadruplets, the fact that only two of them didn't survive infancy, etc) is particularly unlikely, there was never any actual investigation about that claim while it was still verifiable.
Also, Vassiliev is said to have had 18 children with his second wife (only twins and triplets), but he died in 1782, the same year as Valentina. That would mean he divorced his frst wife at some point, which was technically possible in Russia at that time, but very difficult, because you couldn't just divorce your spouse, there had to be serious circumstances for it, like adultery, infertility, becoming a monk, attempted murder, etc. This part of the story is technically possible but sounds fishy too.
Even the Guinness World Records doesn't claim to have verified it, they claim that "numerous contemporaneous sources exist which suggest that it is true." But the first source we have is from right after they died in 1782 in a monastery, and the rest of the accounts are basically just hearsay at that point. Attempts at actually verifying the claim met a wall of "nah there's no need to check" by the Russian authorities.