What is your wildest coincidence?

[Zaphod99]

I was about to start exactly this thread.

Zaph

[pandacub]

I'm another example of discovering that someone I know is a distant cousin.  When I had my DNA test done I found out that a childhood friend from the next street was a 4th cousin.  The connection is through our late mothers, who were very good friends.  Such a shame they never knew at the time as they were both keen on family history. 

[coombs]

Helping a family friend here in Norfolk with their research, and finding they had a great grandmother born in Leigh On Sea in Essex in 1855, and that same Essex village is where my dad's great grandmother was born in 1839. I then found that both women descend from the same Whitfield family in the 1700s in Leigh On Sea.

[MollyC]

I was at school with three sisters, whom I knew because their father worked with mine in a family business.  What had never been explained to me was they were third cousins, because it was their MOTHER who was a second cousin of my father.  Her husband had been invited to join the business at the end of WW2.

[Biggles50]

My Brother in the 60’s used to hitch down south to collect a new car and to drive it back to the dealership who would then pass it on to the new owner.

On one occasion he picked up a hitchhiking Soldier on the A6 who just happened to be seeking a lift to the same town as my Brother was travelling to.

Roll on thirty years and he and his Wife were having dinner with a married couple who they had known for about ten years and Brother started to tell the tale of his delivery adventures and of the meeting with the Soldier.

There male friend then finished the tale and told them all of what they had been taking about, for he was that Soldier.

[jonwarrn]

 

There male friend then finished the tale and told them all of what they had been taking about

And friends, the story is true. I know, I was that soldier.
Sounds familiar!

[DianaCanada]

I met my OH in 2007 and eventually we discovered his direct male ancestor and his wife had come to Canada from Lancashire around 1842; this was written up in a document by another family member.  My father was born in Burnley, Lancs., and OH ‘s lot came from Preston. Then I realized that his female ancestor was born in Chipping, Lancs., as was one of my 3x great-grandmothers. Not a large place at all, and almost certainly our ancestors would have known each other.
Another coincidence is that we both had grandmothers with the maiden name of Oliver, his Olivers are Protestants from Ireland, mine were in Sussex forever.

One day in the late 1980’s, when I was using the LDS library in Ottawa, one of the volunteers asked me what was my interest in Heathfield, Sussex, as I had ordered a microfilm of the parish records. I explained my mother was born there and I was trying to trace some of my ancestors.  Turns out John’s wife was from there, and they had been married there.  It also transpired that all three of us were Harmer descendants, a local family with roots in the area going back hundreds of years.

[coombs]

And coincidences that you have some ancestors from an area where you loved for ages and loved to go on holiday to, or used to travel through a lot, or if you was born and raised in a different area of the country to your parents, that some of their ancestry goes back to where you were raised and where they decided to move to before you was born.

[Blue70]

Documenting an area through family history and then destiny getting me to walk through that area on a regular basis past many of the streets where one part of my family once lived.

C