Valentina Vassilyev

[3][5] 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.

[6] 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.

[2][9][4] 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.

"[2] 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".

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.