69 children born to one lady?

Factual Questions
1

So I tear the page off my Far Side calendar, and get this nifty little factoid “1782. Mrs. Fyodor Vassilyev dies. During her lifetime she gives birth to 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets - 69 children in all.”

Naturally, I was a little surprised. The web hasn’t been much help. This page and this one mention the lady, but only two hits off of google seems a little suspicious to me. Snopes is silent on the matter. So I turn to the teeming masses.

Can anyone dish out the straight dope on this lady?

-ellis

2

Does it say how her husband died?

3

This is documented in the “Guinness Book of World Records.”

She had 27 pregnancies over a period of 40 (c 1725-1765) years: 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 quads. Only two died in infancy

I’m not a fertility expert, but I find it odd that not a single prenancy resulted in a single birth.

The source of this (according to Guinness) is the Monastery of Nikolskiy.

I’m personally skeptical.

4

Thanks for the Guinness cite, Mjollnir. I’m still a bit skeptical myself. It seems like it’d be bigger news if it was true - four sets of quadruplets born to one lady, in the 1700s, nonetheless?

-ellis

5

Actually it is:
“It was reported on 31 January 1989 that Mrs. Maria Olivera (b. 1939) of San Juan, Argentina gave birth to her
32nd child. They are all still alive. The greatest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69,
by the first of the two wives of Feodor Vassilyev (b. 1707-fl.1782), a peasant from Shuya, 241 km 150 miles east
of Moscow, USSR. In 27 confinements she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of
quadruplets. The case was reported to Moscow by the Monastery of Nikolskiy on 27 February 1782. At least 67
who were born in the period c. 1725-65, survived infancy. United States Women in the United States average 1.9
children - well below the world average of 3.6. The highest annual birthrate is Rwanda’s (East Africa), which
averages 8.5, and the lowest is Italy’s at 1.5.”