# Valentina Vassilyev

Valentina Vassilyev (1707 – 1782) was a peasant from Shuya, Russia. She was the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev, who was said to have fathered 87 children; 69 with Valentina between 1725 and 1765 (16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets). According to Guinness World Records, this is the world record for the most children born to a single woman.

## Life and death

Vassilyev was born in 1707, in Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast, Russia. Her father, Rudolph Bauer, was 17 and her mother, Anna Bauer, was 16.
Vassilyev gave birth for the first time in 1725. Between the years 1725 and 1765, she gave birth in 27 confinements to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets; 67 survived out of 69 births. The names of the children along with their dates of birth and death are all unknown. Calculations tally that Vassilyev was pregnant for a total of 18 years throughout the 40 years. According to documents published in Quadruplets and Higher Multiple Births by Marie M. Clay, Valentina Vassilyev lived to be 75 and died in 1782, Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast, Russia; the same year as her husband.
The first complete account recorded of the 69 births was reported in Moscow by the Monastery of Nikolsk on February 27, 1782. The first published account appeared in a 1783 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine. The author wrote: "In an original letter now before me dated St Petersburg, Aug 13, 1782, O. S. Feodor Wassilief, aged 75, a peasant, said to be now alive and in perfect health, in the Government of Moscow, has had by his first wife 4 x 4 = 16, 7 x 3 = 21, 16 x 2 = 32, 27 births, 69 children. By his second wife 6 x 2 = 12, 2 x 3 = 6, 8 births, 18 children.” The account was published again in a 1788 commentary on Russian history and in the 1834 book by Alexander Pavlovich Bashutskiy, Saint Petersburg Panorama.

## Medical debate

Although Guinness World Records confirmed the births, many in the medical world have doubted the possibility in 1700s Russia; a period of history in which data reveals over a quarter to nearly half of all children died in infancy. Director of the Division of Reproductive Science and Women’s Health Research at Johns Hopkins University, James Segars, said in a BBC interview: “In the past, every pregnancy was a risk to the mother’s life. Even if you had four sets of quads today, I’m not sure they’d all survive." Northeastern University professor Jonathan Tilly additionally points out that it is highly unlikely for the time that Vassilyev could have had so many multiple births: “Even just the 16 sets of twins? I’d be shocked."
Author Marie Clay writes: "Sadly, this evasion of proper investigation seems, in retrospect, to have dealt a terminal blow to our chances of ever establishing the true detail of this extraordinary case". An article in an 1878 issue of The Lancet stated: "the French Academy of Sciences attempted to verify the statements about Vassilyev's children and contacted "M. Khanikoff of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg for advice as to the means they should pursue, but were told by him that all investigation was superfluous, that members of the family still lived in Moscow and that they had been the object of favors from the Government".

## Alleged photographs

An alleged photograph of Valentina Vassilyev has been accompanying the story of her multiple births online for several years. However, since Vassilyev died in 1782, some 44 years before the first photograph was taken in 1826, it is impossible for this claim to be true. The actual photograph, considered to be one of the earliest known photographs of a person, is of an unknown elderly woman from New York US around 1840.
Another photograph attributed to Vassilyev and her children began circulating the internet in 2012 when the website Top 10 Lists incorrectly captioned the image. According to the fact-checking website Snopes, the photograph is actually from a 1904 issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly depicting Joseph F. Smith, the 6th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, posing with his multiple wives and children.