Most old houses has had dozens of patched in devices and other weird extensions of circuits. It makes finding breakers for things a pain in the butt and stuff can get overloaded quite easily. As a great example, my grandma's house that was built in the 1950s has a 100 amp panel. Most of the lights on the main floor and the basement are one one circuit, as well as a few outlets. The bathroom GFCI is run off the washing machine/furnace control circuit, a bunch of outlets tie into different circuits, the kitchen has 4! breakers for 6 outlets and the fridge. There are questionable ways of hooking thing sup all round, and crowded hell boxes and 70 year old cracking cloth romex. This is rather unfortunately quite common with older buildings and could only be reminded with a planned house rewire from every angle.
