Random Coincidence?

We moved to Devon in the 1970s and fairly quickly became friends with a couple who had moved there from London. My husband and I are both from Northern Ireland so from very different parts of the country. The Christmas after we moved there the wife of the couple was looking in her late mother's address book for an address and came across an address for a woman in NI with the same name as my husband and written in brackets mother of, husband's and his brothers names. Tuned out her mother and my husband's aunt, who lived in Surrey, had been at secretarial college together and had been lifelong friends. My husband and friend had actually met as children when he was visiting his aunt.

At our wedding we found that my fathers business partner and his wife had been neighbours of my husband's uncle and aunt.

We were on holiday in Greece and started chatting to another couple staying in the same hotel. During conversation it emerged the wife was from West London same as me. Conversation continued and she mentioned their daughter had gone to a certain stage school in the area back in the 1960s. Chatting further, I said that my cousin's best friend's daughter had also gone there, the only other person I knew. It turned out the two girls had been best friends and the lady knew not only the girl I'd mentioned but was still friends with her parents and had also met my cousin!

Because they'd waited for so many years, my dad paid for my mum to have me in a private nursing home. I was very reluctant to put in an appearance, so they sent for the consultant from the nearby hospital.

When I was expecting DS more than 25 years later, my mum came with me to an ante-natal appointment at the hospital. She realised that my consultant, although I only ever saw his underlings, was the same man. She managed to waylay him and thank him for saving both our lives.

This week I am in Barbados, got chatting to a couple fishing off the beach, did the usual “ where are you from”, they were from the US, I’m in Ontario. Asked me if I knew a certain person, it’s was my hairdresser.What are the odds!

Nice one Maw!

Our coincidence isn't all that funny.

Years ago, DH frequently received visits from the bailiffs insisting that he owned a company that he had never heard of money.

The first name, middle name and surname of the person who did owe the money was identical to DHs. What is more they were born on the same day of the same year.

Fortunately, Denmark has a citizen's registry that gives each new-born child a number that contains apart from your date of birth, four other numerals that are allotted in consecutive order to children (numbers ending on an even number to females, on odd numbers to males, when the attending midwife's notification of the birth is received by the registry.

DH's number ended on, let's say 3, the other person's on either1 or 5 - we no longer remember which.

As if the coincidence of two boys with consecutive numbers and the same date of birth having been registered with exactly the same three names wasn't enough, it transpired when the matter was delved into that their mothers had given birth in the same hospital and the two fathers had the same Christian name!

Two different midwives attended and each registered the birth as having occurred at exactly the same time.

My late husband used to go fly fishing on the River Lune in Cumbria. He regularly bumped into a fellow fisherman who said he lived not too far away, was a postman and also a starter at harness racing events in the Lakes.
We were on holiday in Cyprus some years later and got chatting to a young couple. Turned out they lived in the same village as the fellow fisherman and he was indeed their postman. The young man also harnessed raced.
It is a small world.

My daughter married a man with the same last name as my daughter in law so miss S became Mrs D and miss D became Mrs S

I'm sure I've posted this before but ...

My cousin died tragically, asthma attack in his mid-30's. My sister, another cousin and I flew from our homes in NW London for the funeral, to Kerry, Ireland, cousin lived probably 5 miles from Tralee. Got lost trying to find the Church where the funeral was being held ... a car in front pulled over, I pulled over, both of us, the drivers, walked over to each other and at the same time asked each other if we knew the way to this Church ... both of us with London accents ... Well, we found the Church separately .. At the graveside I noticed the young woman driver again, and the older woman with her, who looked very familiar but I just couldn't place her. Next morning it came to me. My son's headmistress, of his Secondary School, in North West London. At my cousins funeral in rural Ireland.

My son asked her, when he next saw her, if she was in Ireland last week .. she looked at him in amazement and - the penny dropped. She'd thought to herself "I know that lady" (me) but couldn't place me. Her husband is the Uncle of my cousin's wife.

I was on holiday in Weston super Mare with my friend, talking to another couple they asked where were we from - I said the nearest City to us as people have never heard of the place I live, they said oh we go to see relatives in .. the village where I live . Last year we went on a cruise, first night a couple sat next to us for dinner - got talking, they were related to someone I work with and live in the next town over to us, and I knew of his shop there as well. Same cruise - on one of the trips we had a wine tasting (sherry actually) and one couple who sat on our table were from our City and work in the theatre we go to, also the people on the table next to us were also from our City.

I moved out to the sticks last year, about 20 miles away from my family. I went to have my hair done at the new place and mentioned my little gd. When I said her first name (which is very old fashioned and pretty much unheard of these days) the young stylist said ‘that’s my little sister’s name’. I was surprised and told her that my gd always says her surname and first name together as if it’s all one word. I said the names and at that point the stylist dropped her brush and said that the surname was she same too. I had to get Fb on my phone to show her my son’s name because I was worried she’d think I’d been stalking her on social media and making it all up. I didn’t know her name at that point so I asked her and she had the same first name and surname as my eldest gd (both granddaughters have the same surname ) although it was a much more common name than the younger one. It was strange to think that a few streets away from me lived two girls with the exact same names as my granddaughters. There was also a similar big age gap but my girls are cousins not sisters.

Kings Cross on Friday evening (yes, 3 days ago). No trains on the platforms. Chaos, no information being given. I'm standing next to a man with a bicycle, in a short conversation we are waiting for the same train, him to Leeds, me to Grantham. I mention I've a further 30 minute drive from Grantham to my village "S". Not only does he know "S" (population 2,500), he dated a woman who lives in "S" (whose house I can see from my garden) and played football for the Village Football team. Further, works for a company that my company has worked with before on projects, and one of his current projects is a stones-throw from my office in London Bridge. Kings Cross, thousands of people, Friday night. And the bloke next to me is recommending the local chippy to my home.

Also my sister-in-law was SPC maiden name and is still SPC with her married name - her middle name is the girl to my brother's male name, and she also has the same name as me apart from her middle name

My cousin had an unhappy first marriage, and later married a kind and gentle man. Some years later she remarked that she often visited her uncle and his wife in London; her husband asked where they lived. Amazingly, he used to visit his aunt and her husband - the same couple. Further conversation revealed that they had been there on the same day, a sixtieth birthday party for the uncle, as young children.

A man approached me at my Dad's funeral and said he hoped i didnt mind him being there. He had seen us leaving for the funeral and felt he had to come. He was at primary school with my Dad. He lived up the road from me! 25years I'd lived near him and never knew this. He said he still had photos of him and Dad at school. How sad it was too late for them to renew their aquaintance.

Years ago, when starting to teach at a large girls' school in China, I was introduced to the only other English person ( out of 100 teachers I believe)

Where are you from?, I said ( How did we get anywhere without that question?)
You'll never have heard of it, she said It's a small mining village in Derbyshire
I had heard the name for the first time that morning when I had picked up the UK post
My mother's cousin had sent me a transcript of the diaries of our great great...... etc grandfather in the 1820s

He had just learnt to write and wrote a simple account of his time as mine manager in that small Derbyshire village.

My new teacher friend said few people had moved away so she was able to give flesh to the bare bones of the diary.... All the people in the family of that name had red hair etc ... the family of that child who had died in a pit accident at the age of 6 (as far as I remember) still live in the village Contributions were made by all the miners to his mother for funeral expenses

We recently had a short break in Sussex. We got chatting to a lovely couple in the bar who mentioned they were celebrating their wedding anniversary the following day. We then discovered that we were married on exactly the same day 53 years ago!

For three years running we met a couple with their child at Gatwick airport, we didn’t know each other, but our children played together in the airport. They were always heading to the same Greek island as us!

We were on holiday and in a lift in a store in Toronto, Canada. There were other people in the lift, but my husband grabbed my arm and turned to a man and a woman who were also in the lift. It turned out they were the people he stayed with when he was a student many years ago living in Brighton. Apparently, they were in town visiting their daughter. How's that for a coincidence!!

I've just had to rehome my two Jack Russell's (long sad story so l won't digress) a lovely family were looking to rehome an older dog to keep their mum company they gave me the address to go and visit, it turned out to be the next door house to one l lived in as a child.

You mean “really came from” ? 😹

I've told this story on here so at the risk of being a bore, I'll tell it again.

When I was 16, I was madly 'in love' with a boy. This was back in my Catholic days. Every night I used to pray 'Please God let me marry (the boy's name)' not a very common name. That romance lasted about a month. My husband, who I have now been married to for over 50 years, has exactly the same name as that boy.

My brother named his daughter using a traditional English name. When he told our dad he replied that was the name of his sister. A sister we never knew existed, lost in the maelstrom of WW2. TBH this seemed very unlikely as my dad wasn't English and it was difficult to believe. Years later I found some records on Ancestry and there she was, her birth recorded in the early part of the 20th century in a language now obscure with a traditional English name carried on by my niece.

These stories are great. 💖