Odd birth and adoptive family crossovers I've discovered

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

A bakers dozen of strange observations from years of hunting down family;

I was born in Lincoln but grew up 20 miles away in Gainsborough, two of my half siblings did the same trip in reverse 12-15 years earlier.
Three branches of my birth family were in Gainsborough in 1901, the same year my adoptive grandmother was born, they all lived within 200 yards of each other.
In 1989 I lived slap bang in the middle of the three addresses from 1901. I nearly bought one of the houses involved in 1991.
At least one of the birth family was baptised in the same church that I got dunked in.
Another one went to the same school as I did six decades later.
A (much older), cousin from my birth family lived 3 doors from me in the 1990's...……..we never knew.
Her daughter and my b-i-l were an item for 3 years.

One of my half siblings worked their notice at a job and left on the Friday, I replaced them the following Monday...….long before I started looking
That job was on Tritton Road in Lincoln where Fosters made the first tanks, one of my ancestors was a test driver of those tanks.

A half sibling moved from Middlesbro' to Northants, I moved from Lincs to Northants, we lived 3 miles apart and worked about 300 yards apart......before I started looking

My paternal grandmother lived in an area that was demolished in the 1930's, in the 1990's it became a retail park and I worked there for 3 years.....40 miles from Gainsborough

For some unknown reason many years ago I had a wander around a Norfolk graveyard, back then I thought you needed help if graveyards were your thing, anyway I was drawn to a headstone laid flat on the ground...……..years later I learned that particular headstone belonged to my 2xgrt grandfather

Swapping photo's with a retired traffic police cousin recently and I showed him one of my old cars, I had a very distinctive paintjob done to it...…….he remembers pulling me over in the wilds of Lincolnshire, so do I actually. Back then he was just a copper with nothing better to do and I was a young "hooligan" spoiling his afternoon nap.

[Jill on the A272]

A neat set of co-incidences Glen!

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

I'm slightly worried that I may have met myself in an alternate life somewhere more than once.

[Caroline]

I'm slightly worried that I may have met myself in an alternate life somewhere more than once.

I am sure I have! None as close to home as yours but I have spotted previously unknown co-incidences in places where I've lived and then found that my ancestors were there before me - all over the UK and maybe Europe, including where I am sitting now.

In 1968/69, I randomly chose Chichester to do my teacher training - mainly because my headteacher said (a) I should be going to university (b) I wouldn't be good teacher, I was that rather underachieving loudmouth always in trouble, and anyway (c) Bishop Otter College was notoriously difficult to get in to at the time. I wrote about some of it:

https://lewcock.net/genetic-memories...t-coincidence/ - I do wonder if I am walking past distant cousins in the area when I'm walking aorund and have found one person I was related to unknowningly https://lewcock.net/surprise-match/ (this has since been confirmed ).

I bet we have all got some similar tales about places/people.

[cbcarolyn]

wow Glen (and Caroline) - it really is a small world.


I found that my Dads gr grandparents were born in Harlow, same place as me, a town that was chosen by my Dad's company to move to in the 1950s, Dad always thought everyone had come from London.

http://www.familytree.chatandthat.co.uk/harlow-and-an-introduction-to-the-bretts/

My aunt bought a cottage built by her grandad in Cornwall and she had no idea he had built it.

I do love to hear a coincidence story or 2

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

I've worked in Lincoln, Worksop and Sheffield doing home deliveries and found birth family in all of them. I've prpbably dropped a few washing machines off to distant cousins ;D On the transporters I went to Yeadon quite a lot, the dealer was next to the old mill and some of mine owned it for many years. That's the bowl of hot custard as evidence for the jury story I found some years ago.

Then there's the time I moved from Northants to Coldstream and we used to shop in Berwick, a shop we used to visit was where my great grandfather lived as a boy. I did a bit of temping for a company virtually on the beach...…..then found great grandad was born in the shorehouses pretty much where I was working.

[Jill on the A272]

My favourite is when we found out that the Crown in Horsted Keynes where we have often been was OH's ancestor Nathan Holford's in 1798 and he was the first person to run it as a pub (and was also a farmer and churchwarden). Now when we go we sit in the old part by the big open fireplace rather than in the extension. It was fire damaged a few years ago following a lightning strike so there are few original features but at least it's still there.

[julite]

My parents met in the late 1930s in North Staffordshire, by accident - literally. Mum was a young nurse, dealing with a boy injured in a traffic accident - brought in by by a policeman - my dad. She came from East Staffordshire; he came from Oxford - his birth parents, with whom he had no contact and little knowledge from Kent. While digging away at my unknown antecedents, I recently discovered that 6 of the 3rd cousins on my mum’s side are 4th cousins on my dad’s side -maybe as a result of 19th century improved cross-country mobility between the North Midlands and South East - despite no HS2...

[cbcarolyn]

cool, amazing both stories.

Mind you I cam back from Cologne on the train from London and sat literally next to my friend who had been to London for a day out (12 carriages to choose from), I hadn't even known she was in London that day!

My Dad bumped into a school friend from Finchley outside the paper shop in Bognor, when he was in his 70s!

[jules of the desert]

Wow Glen and Caroline, fantastic co-incidences.

I look at my DNA matches every day on Ancestry, and check their trees to see if I recognise any names and also see where they came from. One DNA match last week has the family of my best friend’s husband in her tree, his family came from Lincolnshire/Northants, and we both live in the same village in Cheshire and have known each other for 30+ years.

Another co-incidence this last week as well, another DNA match has my m-i-l’s family in his tree who all came from over the border in Derbyshire. So I could somehow be distantly related to my husband.
My lot come mainly from Shropshire. Don’t you just love co-incidences. ;D

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

Wow. My birth father had children to at least four different partners, literally 15 minutes ago I found two "sets" of them both have ancestors in a small Yorkshire village in the early 1800's on their maternal sides. It looks like they may have the same 4th great grandparents and they both have links to Bridlington in the 1930's too.....and one of maternal aunts pitched up there in the late 1930's and married a local chap. This is getting freaky now.

[Little Nell]

Nothing so dramatic in my tree. But I went to find my great-grandfather's place of birth when I got his birth certificate and found it was next door to a pub my ex and I used to frequent when we went to watch London Welsh Rugby club. My paternal grandmother was born in a road off the Holloway Road, which can be seen from the railway line which I used to commute on when I moved to Hitchin. I also found my ancestors and my ex's London ancestors were often just a street or so away in various censuses and I wondered if they ever met!

[kylejustin]

Two of my paternal grandmother's siblings live in my hometown, but what i didn't know was that my biological paternal grandfather was raised there, by his uncle. When i was 18, we moved from country to coast, to be closer to my maternal relatives (who are english) and this great uncle had died in the area we moved to.....

I also learned that my fave suburbs in inner melbourne are where said grandfather was born and his parents were born and raised..

It's amazing what you learn when you do your tree.