Relatively speaking, the successive family heads of the Mito Tokugawa family lived a long life and were blessed with children, so many sons from the family were adopted into other families during the late half of the Edo period.
水戸徳川家の歴代当主は比較的短命・無子の者が少なく、江戸時代の後半には他家に養子に出した例が多い。