[ti]shock[/ti]Tell us your "strange coincidence" story.

i guess this is more" it's a small world" , maybe...
curtis works with a lovely young lady named taryn,who's getting married in may, and sent home our invitation with curtis the other day. i worked with her while i was there, and i've been sending her and her fiance lasagna and stuff for about 5 years now, she's such a sweet girl.
well, i never knew her last name until i got the invite, and it rang a bell! my cousin jackie had mentioned a couple of years ago that she has a granddaughter named taryn,i thought nothing of it, it's a popular name in that age group.
so i called the store yesterday and asked taryn if her gramma's name was the same as my cousin's.. lo and behold,taryn is my cousin!! and i will get to see her gramma and her dad, neither of whom i've seen in 40 years at the wedding!! we are all so excited!!!
i now understand why taryn and i hit it off so fast, she is JUST like her gramma!!!

that's kinda cool too, though! the whole family names thing is to me, we don't get that with females in my family very much. i'm the last barri,and i'm the reason i'm the last, i threatened a few parents, lol! it was NOT fun growing up with my name.

When my kids were in Primary school I often used to wak the kids to school and chat to this lady whose son was a little friend of my daughter. Some years later we were were interviewed for an article in the local paper and it was when she said her surname that I realized we must be related... My mother's family is the only family in Aust. with that particular surname..

it was so funny, all those years we'd sort of known each other but hadn't
She had also been at the family reunion some years earlier but when she was researching the family tree, she said she had my mother married to the wrong man ( I fixed that for her) lol

I could kick myself for being antisocial at my last paternal side family reunion.
I was young and I didn't want to go. My dad guilted me into going and I showed him by being antisocial.
Ugh. I hate that I did that. I know very little about that branch.
My tree is lopsided. I know everything about my mothers relatives and only half of my fathers side. I have nothing on my father's father.

Oh my Kay!! and LOL


Dawn. mainly I went to the renunion because my mother wanted me to. I didn't take much notice of who was who, which is something I regretted later on

What are the odds of that happening?

Not a coincidence, but a rather shocking skeleton I've just discovered in Mr Penny's family tree. In 1834 one of his ancestors was married at age 13 to a man eight years older than herself. She was 2 months pregnant at the time so I suspect she was given special permission to marry for that reason. She went on to have 11 children to him.
That poor little girl, whatever kind of a life must it have been?
And the man she married was the son of a man who was hanged for highway robbery and then discovered afterwards to be innocent!

i knew this guy

lived with this beautiful, lithesome, 6' tall, blue-eyed blond dancer, in a quaint new england cottage from where he sold quality antiques and furniture.

They didn't have much but they had each other and a plan to build on.



out of the blue, she decided to leave for the promise of California.

The guy was devastated that she was leaving and, though invited, couldn't follow.

He had family & history.



The day she left, he gave her his last bit of cash, a soulful kiss & his best wishes.



Crushed & on the verge of giving up, he sat in his shop ( attached to the country cottage ) and prayed, out loud,

"Lord, I need your help. Please help me".

He meant it with every fiber,molecule & quant of his being ( so he said ).



No cash, nothing but a few cans of creamed corn in the cupboard and one's heart being ripped out will do that, so I've heard.



A short time later, a couple wandered in, wanted to buy a dining set but haggled with the guy.

( They were short a whole $10 of what the guy wanted &, being in bad frame of mind, he was being a dick. They said they'd come back tomorrow with the other 10...yeahhh, riiiight. )



As he & they haggled, another gent wandered in & interjected himself into the negotitiation.



"They seem like a nice couple. Give them the set. They don't come back? I'll give you the 10 bucks."



The guy, beat down & beleagured, gave in.

The young couple left happy & he had instant money in his pocket.



The interloper asks "Do you buy or trade?"

The guy; "Sometimes. Depends."



"Maybe I should show you something."



"Yeah, maybe you should" the guy responds with dripping sarcasm.



As the Interloper rummages through his Lincoln he calls out, "Hey! You hungry?"



"Nah", the guy lies.



"You sure?"



"Hey, whatever man..."



The stranger returns with a couple of bags.

Shortly, they're making a deal wherein the guy trades 6 American Limoges dinner plates for a dozen, heavy, "made-in-japan" Blue Willow plates and $60, cash, from the interloper.



Then the Interloper opens the other bag.

"I was at this restaurant; had to meet a friend who wanted to talk.

I ordered this shrimp scampi & the vegetables but I didn't touch them because I wasn't really hungry."



"By the way, my name is Father Mescal. I'm pastor at the Star of the Sea church."

I checked, Maggie - there wasn't a lot of information out there but as far as I can make out, right up till 1942 the marriage age was the same as the age of consent 14 for boys and 12 for girls. Flashie might be better informed, she's been into this family history stuff a lot longer than me. I imagine at that age you'd still have needed parental consent, but even so it seems unbelievable today, doesn't it.

My lips are sealed.

Poor girls, being forced to deal with adult situations at such a young age. If I remember correctly, canon law deemed marriageability to be based on procreation age which was something like 12 for girls and 13/14 for boys.

My parents were both 20 when they married in 1955. They needed parental consent and blood tests. And, birth certificates. It was then that my dad found out that he was illegitimate after being informed that he didn't exist. My grandmother remained married to her first husband and , I suspect to make my dad, for all intents and purposes, appear legitimate, gave him her first husbands surname. My dad had it changed via deedpoll to his father's surname. Anyway, because he was under 21, his dad had to prove to the Courts that he was a fit parent. I wonder what would have happened if he had have been deemed unfit?

I'm jealous of everyone's family stories. As well as being adopted and not knowing anything about my birth families, I have very limited family in my new family as well. I don't have any cousins, no grandparents and only two aunties.

Anyway, my coincidence.

Met a lady online on a chatboard (Websleuths). We became friends. When I told her my real name, she said she started to cry. We had the same surname, and she had given birth to a stillborn girl, who she had named my first name. Plus, her name was Margaret, which was my biologicals Mothers name.

I sort of hate to ask this Duffy, but is it possible the your online friend was actually your mother?

I'm just thinking of an unwed mother back in the day when their baby was taken from them.

i had a teacher who was near the end of his career and we just didn't get on at all .. along came ''parent teacher interviews '' and when my parents walked in he recognized my mother from the first class he ever taught . (they didn't get on either ) he treated me a lot better for the remaining half a year .