{160}
_"Mater ait natæ," &c._ (Vol. vii., pp. 247, 248.).--When calling
attention to these lines in "N. & Q." (Vol. vii., p. 155.), I at the same
time asked if such a relationship as that mentioned in them was ever
known to exist? This Query was very kindly and satisfactorily answered by
your correspondents ANON and TYE. But, remarkable as were the instances
mentioned by them of the two old ladies in Cheshire and Limington,
who could speak to their descendants in a female line to the fifth
generation, still that I am now to record of an old man in Montenegro is
much more singular, as he could converse with his lineal descendants in
an uninterrupted _male_ line one generation farther from him, (i. e.)
to the sixth. The case is too well authenticated to admit of a doubt,
and until some one of your correspondents shall favour me with another
equally to be credited, it will remain in the columns of "N. & Q." as the
only one known to its readers:--
"Colonel Vialla de Sommières, a Frenchman, who was for a long
time governor of the province of Catano, mentions a family he
saw in a village of Montenegro, which reckoned six generations.
The venerable head of the family was 117 years old, his son
100, his grandson 82, great-grandson 60, and the son of this
last, who was 43, had a son aged 21, whose child was 2 years
old!"