Johan Petter Bordewick - most prolific male ancestor

From Genea-Musings: I found this link after Father’s day, but I still want to play with it, because the answer came to me even though I wasn’t positive I was right.

Your mission for Father's Day, if you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Determine who is one of the most prolific fathers in your genealogy database or in your ancestry. By prolific, I mean the one who fathered the most children.

2) Tell us about him in your own blog post, in comments to this blog post, or in comments on Facebook.

As I said, for me, the answer came right away. Mostly because either my ancestors didn’t tend to have that many kids very often—rarely over ten—but also because in many generations, right now, all I have is my direct ancestor, and I don’t know how many siblings they had.

For my family, the answer is Johan Petter Bordewich. The reason is because he married twice. First to my great-great grandfather’s grandmother, Leonharde Marine Linkhausen, with whom he had eleven children, and after her death, to my great-great grandmother’s mother, Henrikke Roness, with whom he had four more children.

He is one of my baseline progenitors. Both because of the dual ancestry placement and because before him I have very little information. I do know the names of his parents and their birth and death years, and that he had two brothers, but that’s pretty much it.

He’s always been there in my tree, and it’s always been easy to remember his name because he’s in most family trees I print out for this side of the family.

Other bits about Johan and his family aside from the above:

* He was Norwegian. This is an assumed fact, because I know my great-grandfather was Norwegian, and so most of this line, at least to this point, I assume is also Norwegian.

* His four daughters from his second marriage may have gone by the surname “Johansdatter,” though I currently have all four listed as “Bordewich” in my family tree program. Johansdatter is actually more likely from this time-period, though I’d never thought to look for any of them that way. I will have to look for his daughters from his first marriage that way as well.

* I know that his grandson was a fisherman, so I tend to assume that Johan was as well, though this doesn’t necessarily follow. My great-grandfather’s father wasn’t firstborn, so it’s possible there was a farm, and he just didn’t inherit. Though in Norway this is less likely.

Johan’s Children:
With Leonharde Marine Linkhausen
* Johan Petter Bordewich 1827 – 1913
* Antonette Henrikke Bordewich 1829 – 1920
* Hans Henrik Bordewich (my g-g-g grandfather) 1834 – 1893
* Elsie Sofie Bordewich 1837 – 1861
* Hans Jorgen Bordewich 1837 – 1937
* Anna Magdelena Bordewich 1839 – 1854
* Johan Henrik Bordewich 1839 – 1924
* Wilhelm Bordewich 1841 – 1853
* Jorgen Christian Bordewich 1842 – 1899
* Lars Nikolai Bordewich 1844 – 1912
* Leonharde Marine Bordewich 1846 – 1846 (Which is also when her mother died—I have to assume birth complications caused both deaths)
With Hinrikke Roness
* Ida Amalie Bordewich 1853 - ?
* Leonharde Marie Bordewich (my g-g grandmother) 1861 – 1944
* Anna Magdalena Bordewich 1862 – 1933
* Petter Roness Bordewich 1867 - ?

Of course, this is only the listing of children I know. It’s quite likely there were at least a few more that didn’t make it past their first day…