Has anyone ever found out they are related to their best friend? Etc.

[Mvann]

Hi all

Sister worked with a lady and introduced her to mum. The lady was mum's cousin.

Also, mum had a friend at school and they went to meet her friends mother one lunch time. Turns pur her friends mother was my mums mothers cousin

Jon

[andrewalston]

My best friend from junior school has recently moved back to our home town, so I dug into his FH.

Our families are linked, though only through one marriage.

The farm where I get my eggs is owned by someone with a surname which I recognise from my family in the area. I already had his grandfather in my data, so printed off something of his family.

On my next visit he told me that his wife had looked at this, and asked if I could do something similar for her.

The following week I presented her with another set of paperwork. "Hello, cousin!"

She's a 4th cousin twice removed, and also a 6th cousin once removed, and a 7th cousin once removed. Everyone in that area seems to be related to everyone else!

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I was at a small village primary school, and discovered during research that one of my contemporaries there was a 4th cousin once removed. I was tracing my gr gr grandfather's siblings forward and found myself looking at names I recognised as my mother's friends. Then I found that a friend at secondary school was a 3rd cousin once removed. Although her family lived in Canterbury by then, she knew that her grandmother had a link with my home village and my grandfather knew her name, though the family link was further back and in another village.
   

[shadowwind2112]

A number of years ago, ten years ago to be exact, I was on holiday in Torquay, and on this particular evening - I was talking on a thread on Faceache, about Staffies (the dogs) and was defending this person who was also commenting, so I added this person in question who I was talking to. Fast forward and after months of talking to each other in texts and via phone calls, we meet each other at a local coffee shop, and again a couple of months later in July 2012.

Of course one thing leads to another and I remember her saying to me in 2019 the following,

wouldn't it be strange if we were related to each other, yet epic at the same time.

[/i]

Of course in 2020 lockdown came, and with time on my hand I decided to delve deeper into my family tree, and it turns out that she is related to me via the husband of my great grandaunt, who was married to my great granduncle (if I am not mistaken). Through his side of the family his side of the tree eventually leads me to the husband of my friend's cousin. So for ten years I have had the most epic of friends, only to recently discover she is distantly related to me.

[coombs]

I helped a long time family friend with her FH and found her great gran came from the same Essex fishing village that my lot came from. Turned out we shared ancestors in the 1600s. Sadly she has let us down in recent years over us not getting on with one of her friends, and took her side. So i see the cousin ship as very, very distant whereas before I embraced it. Lets hope there is an NPE on her lines of descent from the mutual ancestors.

[Gan Yam]

I discovered when I started doing OH's family tree that, we are both related to one of my second cousins, although we are not related to each other.

I recently discovered that my neighbour and I are 4th cousins.

[coombs]

Mum and dad both went to school with distant cousins in SE Essex.

Imagine if the nasty neighbour, local villain or school bully turned out to be a distant cousin.

I always was a fan of Madonna, and she has some distant English roots through her French nobility ancestors on her mother's side, and they meet up with mine through my gateway ancestor. Madonna's  ancestry is 98% French and Italian (at least traceable) but has a spot of English and Spanish.

Madonna can sing a new song for me called Cousin Don't Preach.

[brigidmac]

friends can become family

My scots gran told me she met grandad at a wedding so they were related ..I didn't ask at the time and kept waiting for DNA lines to converge

 the answer was closer than I expected but related by marriage . Grandads elder sister married grandmas  cousin ....

I only recently realised when I saw her father   was a witness on that marriage . !

So they were in laws
.friends then related by marriage
And  their descendants  connected to both sides of my tree 🌲

[DianaCanada]

One of my son’s best friends is distantly related to him, and they have been friends since they were three years old, since 1990. Their fathers both moved to Ontario from the same area of Quebec, although they didn’t know each other - but my then mother in law knew all about the connection.

OH and I both have ancestors from Chipping, Lancashire from the early 1800s.  Not unusual for locals in Lancashire perhaps but I was born in Quebec and he was born in Michigan. His Chipping folk came in Canada in 1842.  Am sure if we could trace them further back we would have ancestors in common.  Ancestry DNA shows we share at least one distant cousin.