Career
She gave birth to a total of 69 children. She gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 births. The first published account about Feodor Vassilyev"s children appeared in a 1783 issue of The Gentleman"s Magazine (Volume(s) 53 p 753, London, 1783) and states that the information "however astonishing, may be depended upon, as it came directly from an English merchant in Street St. Petersburg to his relatives in England, who added that the peasant was to be introduced to the Empress".
The same numbers were given in an 1834 book of Bashutskiy, Saint St. Petersburg Panorama.
Several published sources raised doubts as to the veracity of these claims. According to a 1933 article by Julia Bell in Biometrika, a 1790 book of B. F. J. Hermann Statistische Schilderung von Rußland did provide the claims about Feodor Vassilyev"s children but "with a caution".
Bell also notes that the case was reported by The Lancet in an 1878 article about the study of twins. Bell concludes that Vassilyev"s case "must be regarded as under suspicion".
Similarly, Marie Clay in a 1998 book notes: "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".
The data about Vassilyev"s children is included in the Guinness Book of World Records.
