The woman lived 76 years and from 1725 to 1765 she gave birth to 69 children: 4 quadruplets, 7 triplets and 16 pairs of twins.
Her husband was a peasant in the XVIII century. His wife got into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest mother in history.
The first mention of their children is found in the 1783 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine (No. 53, p. 753, London).
It says that this information, „although amazing, deserves full confidence, because it was transmitted by an English merchant from St. Petersburg directly to his relatives in England; he also mentions that the peasant will be presented to the Empress.”
Of course, many sources questioned the veracity of this information.
Apparently, no one has checked this information for sure, so it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to establish the truth.
Nevertheless, data on Vasiliev’s children are included in the Guinness Book of Records.
Unfortunately, there are no reliable photos of the Vasiliev family.
The photos in this article are often published as an illustration of this story, but there is no evidence that it depicts exactly Fedor, Valentina and their children.
And from a biological point of view, a woman may well give birth 27 times in her life.
