Well, jazz, sometimes its luck, or healthy genes--My ex can trace his family back to the mayflower--
One of his forefathers married a woman who came over on the mayflower as a child.. the forefathers name was long and hard to pronounce-- so it got changed in the 1640's to Sias-- all the Sias's in the US and Cananda are related to this man-- and there are thousands! (several book have been written-- "the Sias's in America" has several volumes! In my husbands branch-- His great grand father-- was a hard scabble NE farmer-- went to serve in Civil War-- was wounded, and served time in Andersonville prison-- survived that, return to northern NE-- North of Mount Washington-- at the time the northern most town in NH-- where he lived another 50 years-- and father 7 more children-- (for a total, i think of 13-- 12 of whom survived to adulthood! )
Them are good healthy genes! This was not a rich man-- and the climate he lived in made it hard to grow enough food to survive-- but he did, and his kids did-- and going back in history, you see he was typical for his family-- in most generation, more than 50%-- sometime 75% or more of the children survived to adulthood-- in large families of 10 to 13-- this makes a big difference!
The Sias's are strong--(His grandmother lived to 103!) So it wouldn't take anything much but a one or two strong Davis males-- marrying some strong women (or going through two or three wifes!) to have a large family-- and soon creating a large population with the same name!
