What is your most amazing (personal) family history discovery?

[meles]

mab's coincidence moved me to tell my strange story.

I've been concentrating on my father's side of the family. Mum asked "What about my side?" so I started down there. She knew nothing about them, apart from her Dad's name and her Grandfather's name (which she got wrong!)

The family originally came from Hampshire, but moved to Lambeth, and when Mum married Dad and they found a flat in Wimbledon, an easy commute to where they worked. They moved from there shortly after I was born.

So I was rather surprised when I found in the 1881 census that her Great Grandfather's brother moved to Wimbledon. I showed Mum - "but that's the house where WE used to live!"

Spooky, huh?

meles

[Etude]

Hi Jackeroo,
 Have just been reading about Hutt River Province.

 Their website is:www. principality-hutt-river.com

 Interesting story!

[little meg]

I found a distant cousin living right next door to my son.
My son was the "boy next door that played loud music" 

There have been many amazing coincidences turning up throughout my research, and I think it is fate that leads us to each other, in one way or another.

Margaret

[Suttonrog]

My G grandmother had 4 cousins once removed. 2 emigrated to St Kitts and 2 became lawyers in London.

Through a complete accident I was in correspondence with a St Kitts descendant in New York. He rang me out of the blue to see if I had any information on the 2 brothers in London. He gave me an address in Wood Street.I was working at the time in a building in Gresham Street, next door to Wood Street.

The Guildhall is just opposite. A quick reference to the directories of the time confirmed the address was just off of Wood Street. A visit to the map room showed that their house had been demolished to make way for the building of Gresham Street and the building I was working in was right on top of where they had lived.

Rog

[toni*]

some amazing stories there
mines not nearly as good

my Nan orignally from Leicester evacuated to Sussex and evntually moved here
my OH came from Sussex and moved up to Leicester when he was 6 when his brother died,
his parents split up when he was 9 and he stayed in Leicester with his mum, his Dad moved back to Sussex and my OH came to live with him when he was 18.
when i say Sussex i mean a specific town.

isn't that strange

[tinav40]

I've mentioned a couple of times on here that my 4x great grandmother is also my husbands 5x g gran. I only realised a short while ago when I started his family tree.
We went to all the same schools throughout our childhood and lived about 200 yards from each other but we never once met until I paid him out on a winning horse ( I used to be a bookie) 10 years ago.
It is indeed a small world and almost seems like we are all meant to be around the same people in each generation.
I find it strange that our families lived in the same village and did the same things that we are doing with their descendants now.
Spooky stuff.

[Hanan]

I have been researching all 4 of my grandparents family trees.  Each branch came from all over Scotland and Ireland.  But for some strange reason around the 1850's all four branches lived and worked in Isle of Arran.  If you don't know it, Arran is a small island they all must have known each other. 

They had all left Arran by late 1870's and spread over south west Scotland but funny how my grandparents and ultimately my parents marriage almost 100 years later brought us all back together again.

[airdlass]

I think my favourite personal discovery was finding (with a lot of help)my great uncle's grave.
I knew he had died in Australia but I had no idea where. I found his WW1 records online and knew that at one point he had lived in Western Australia. I eventually sent off for his death certificate which told me he had died in Dumbleyung. I then contacted the Town council there and thanks to them I found his grave and also that he had been quite well known in the town and was mentioned in their records.
A distanct cousin who lived a few hours away very kindly offered to go there and take pictures which I have been able to give to the older folk of my family. The only sad thing is there is no headstone.

[MarieC]

Mine also involves graves, airdlass, and in both cases I had the very strange feeling the people wanted to be found!  They were all Camerons - it's probably that Scottish clannishness extending beyond the grave! 

I set out to find a ggrandfather's grave.  All I knew was that he was buried in the bush, somewhere west of Quilpie - and there's an awful lot of empty country out there!  Anyway, after many enquiries and much persistence, the Quilpie Shire Council finally found the relevant landowner.  Two cousins came with me to visit him - one was the daughter of his son who was one of those who buried him there.  Her dad has been gone for a long time, so it was very special for her!  We travelled over 1000 kilometres each way, and things happened very smoothly - I'm sure the old boy was making sure that we got there!  And it was very moving when we arrived at the grave, which was on a sloping hillside overlooking a creek.

The other instance was when I was in Fort William years ago.  I idly went for a walk over the moors, and purely by chance, (?) came upon a remote little cemetery with a number of Camerons buried there.  I noted some of the inscriptions, and when I came home and told Dad, he said that some of them were our ancestors.  Because I had found the cemetery, he was able to pay a visit on his only trip to Scotland a few years later.  This was before I was into family history - but I've always thought I was led there!

MarieC

PS  Sadly, some of my English ancestors are absolutely the opposite - they definitely DO NOT WANT to be found!