What is your wildest coincidence?

[Josephine]

Here's mine.

Picture this: a small wedding held in a private home in 1911 in El Paso, Texas.

The groom was living in New Mexico at the time but he had previously lived in El Paso. The bride was from a different city in Texas.

I'm researching the groom and his family because I've finally (just this month) figured out a DNA puzzle that's been driving me crazy ever since I got my DNA test results in 2021. I believe the groom in question was my great-great-uncle.

The groom's family had moved to Texas at some point in the previous 15 years, but were originally from Louisiana. Prior to settling in Louisiana in the late 1700s or so, they were from France and Spain.

So from France and Spain to Louisiana, then to Texas and on to New Mexico, but back to Texas for his wedding: that's the groom. He's on my father's side of the family (according to the DNA.)

The minister who officiated at this 1911 wedding was a descendant of my maternal grandmother's distant family from Scotland. That branch of the family had gone from Scotland to Canada (first Quebec, then Ontario), then on to the US (New York).

One of their sons became a Presbyterian minister and lived for several years in various parts of Texas, including El Paso, before moving on to Oregon.

So from Scotland to Quebec to Ontario to New York to El Paso, Texas (and onward from there). The minister is on my mother's side of the family.

I was born and raised in Canada. My third cousin three times removed (on my mother's side) was the minister who officiated at my great-great-uncle's (on my father's side) wedding in 1911 in Texas. And I only know this because a) I'm a genealogy buff, and b) I can access these records online.

My mind is officially blown.

[MollyC]

My father would have said "It's a small world".

[Old Bristolian]

I moved for work reasons from Yorkshire to Witney in Oxfordshire in the 1970s. About the same I began to research my family history and was helped by a couple of Victorian marriage certificates that my father had inherited. The marriages were both in Bristol where I considered all my immediate ancestors to have lived. I checked on the oldest of the certificates as the groom had a very unusual surname and would have been born c1840.
In those days one had to travel to St Catherines House in London to consult the very large and heavy indices for births. On finding only one candidate I ordered the birth certificate and discovered that he had been born in the street next to one I was living in. I thought 'this fh researching is a piece of cake'. If only….

[g eli]

I ordered the 1810 baptism certificate of my 2great grandfather, to my surprise the next entry was my husband's 3 great granduncle. The families moved away from that area and it wasn't until I started researching that I knew that our ancestors came from the same area.

[Gan Yam]

When I started researching OH's family tree, an unusual name popped up in his tree which I thought I'd seen before.  On checking I discovered that OH and I share a 2nd cousin, but we are not related to each other.

The other coincidence is my neighbour of over 30 years turns out to be my 4th cousin!

[Aguella]

Absolutely love hearing these!

Mine is probably discovering that the classmate with whom I did my first torts assignment at law school is actually my third cousin!!!

Neither of us/our parents were born in the country in which we studied, making it a truly remarkable coincidence. When looking at a family will I came across the same name as my old classmate, and immediately messaged her to ask if it was indeed her. She confirmed it and we had a lovely evening sharing all the family gossip over some Aperol spritzes!

[Aguella]

Perhaps one more to add. My granny discovered, through Ancestry DNA, that she had a paternal half-brother. I was explaining this to my granny's maternal niece & this niece's husband (so, no relation at all to the half-brother, and born in different countries!) - and I showed them a photograph of this half-brother. The niece's husband said "Oh I know him, we go shooting together!"

[MollyC]

I met a married couple researching in the library.  They had discovered they had a common ancestor, who had married twice. They were one generation apart, I think it was four and five generations previously.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I discovered when I researched the wider reaches of my Kent ancestry that I was at primary school with a 4th cousin, and secondary school with a 3rd cousin from a quite different part of the family. None of us were aware of it at the time and it makes me wonder how much our ancestors knew of these distant relationships - maybe more than we think?