My second great-grandmother lived with her maternal grandparents from about the age of eight until shortly before her marriage. I initially assumed it was because her own parents had so many children. While that may have been a part of it, there likely was more.

I’m not certain when she began living with her grandparents, but after learning more about her grandparents’ family I discovered that there were several things that took place about the same time she began living with them:

• Her mother’s younger sister had a child whom the grandparents raised from birth.
• All of her grandparents children were out of the house with their own families.
• Her grandfather’s mother moved in with her grandparents.

Those three things may have played a role in why gg-grandma remained with her grandparents–or at least why she came to live with them initially. The grandmother may have needed a little extra support with household duties when her empty nest suddenly had an infant and a mother-in-law in it.

Looking at her living with her grandparents made more sense when I looked at what was going on in the lives of her grandparents at the time. Context and chronology matters.