We have featured a couple of very large families on this website -- a New Zealand family with 14 children and a Spanish family with 15 (now 16) -- but both are outstripped by the Duggar family of Tontitown, Arkansas.

Famous across America for their show on The Learning Channel (TLC), “18 Kids and Counting”, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar have announced that their 19th child is on the way and due next March. Their youngest was born only last December.

At the same time their oldest child, Josh, 21, is about to become a father. Married last year, Josh and Anna are expecting their first child next month -- a grandchild who will be older than its youngest uncle or aunt.

The Duggars, whose income is from managing real estate, are Christians who believe that “each child is a special gift from God and we are thankful to Him for each one.” They say, “We consider the Bible the 'Owner's Manual' for our lives, and in it is contained all the answers to life’s questions.” Michelle said she was “surprised” at her latest pregnancy, but “pleasantly” so.

"I was just jumping up and down going, 'Thank you, Lord. Here am I - 42, thinking my baby days are over - and you've blessed us with another one."'

And she is open to more -- “I still have a lot of energy left,” she says.

Good for her, for them.

A couple of interesting facts: the family lives in a 650-square-metre house; all the children’s names (10 boys and 8 girls) begin with J; there are two sets of twins.

Earlier this year the Huffington Post had a bit of fun calculating how the Duggar tribe could increase if all the children had the same number of children, and all their children the same, and so on. The fifth generation would have three times the present population of Vermont, America’s smallest state (and latest to embrace same-sex marriage, which won’t help the population any) and would, on the average American salary, earn enough to bail out AIG…

Wild speculation, of course, but, as HuffPost says, it just goes to show “how fast a family can expand when they start having kids young and keep going!”

That post, by the way, got 463 comments, and, judging by the first dozen, most of them were far from complimentary. Funny thing, how big is always better except when it comes to families.

Here is a video interview with Michelle Duggar.