Seven Generations According to Native American tradition, the consequences of choices made by ancestors in one generation reverberate for seven generations. Make those decisions with utmost care, they say, to guarantee good lives for those who come after. Seven generations of a motherline, all seven lived on farms, six lived in Iowa, five in Guthrie County, five widowed, four were oldest daughters, had ten or more children, three lived into their nineties, two earned high school diplomas, only one was born in a hospital and she became the keeper of the stories of her motherline.