Happy Birthday to the 19th Century McClure Twins

 
On this day in 1875, fraternal twins Jesse and Bessie McClure were born. They were the youngest children of Train Caldwell McClure and Gulia Swain McClure. Jesse and Bessie were my husband's first cousins, twice removed.

The McClure line has few multiple births, so Jesse and Bessie stand out. Unfortunately, no birth records exist to indicate which twin was born first. 

Jesse McClure worked in the paper and printing industry all his life. At the age of 25, he married dressmaker Elnora "Eleanor" Ross, in 1900. Ten years later, they moved to Everett, Washington for his work. Elnora died of a stroke in 1944; Jesse died in 1952. 

Bessie McClure married Judson Deveny, a tailor, in 1897. They had a daughter, Ruth, before divorcing. Bessie married real estate agent Guy Cockley in 1903, and he helped raise Ruth. Guy died of heart disease in 1934; Bessie died from pneumonia 25 years later, in 1959. Both Bessie and Guy are buried in Falls Cemetery, Wabash, Indiana, where her headstone reads "Mother" and his reads "Dad."

Thinking of the McClure twins on the 151st anniversary of their birth.

Twice As Nice: Identical and Fraternal Twins

As a twin and the daughter of a twin, I'm really interested in twins! Above, Sis and me when we were tiny tykes with a little bit of hair. We don't know who's who in this photo, but I'm older by a matter of minutes. 👍 

Twin birth rates

Sis and I recently did a deep dive into twin research. We learned that in the United States, twin births account for 30.7 of every 1,000 births (as of 2023, the latest statistics available). That means just over 3 percent of US births are twins, while a whopping 97% of US births are singletons. 

Yet identical twins stand out even more: only about 4 out of every 1,000 births are identical twins. In other words, identicals represent less than half of one percent of all births, worldwide. 

Identical twins are always same sex, because they are the result of one egg that spontaneously splits. In contrast, fraternal twins can be same sex or opposite sex, because they develop from two separate eggs. Here's more about the difference between identical and fraternal twins. 

Key fact: fraternal twins tend to run in families, but identicals don't. By the way, the highest rate of twin births in the world is in southwest Nigeria, where 45 of every 1,000 births are twins--primarily fraternal twins. 

One or two placentas?

Mom and Dad always insisted that Sis and I were fraternal twins, because there were apparently two placentas. These days, the common wisdom that identicals always share one placenta has been disproved: sometimes identical twins each have their own placenta!

DNA testing is the only scientific way to confirm whether twins are identical or fraternal, which is how Sis and I are absolutely certain that we're identical. Sis says she "always knew" we were identical, but until DNA came along, I trusted my Mom's belief that we were fraternal. I have to admit, Sis was correct all along. 👏