Cambridge Coincidences Collection

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

outrageous family link

My wife's grandmother was Lily Smith. She was born in 1891 in East Budleigh, Devon. In 1911 she was working as a domestic servant in Ramsgate. Her employers were Laura Collins, and her two sisters Marion Collins and Ada Shury (née Collins), a widow. (Until I found the record in the 1911 census I din't know where she was born, as she was born after the 1891 census, and her name is very common, so I couldn't find her in the 1901 census.) My 5 x great Grandfather was Jacob Heck, born in Bethnal Green 1747. His great grand daughters were Laura, Marion and Ada Collins. They were born at 35 Camden Square, St. Pancras, London. (I would not have been able to find this if another distant relative in Australia had not sent me a family tree which had been printed in 1822, and covered the period 1711 to 1822 - the profession of members of the family in 1822 being that of printers) So my wife's grandmother was the domestic servant to my 2nd cousins 4 times removed.

Distant Relatives

I live in Canada and while visiting Australia in the 1970's met and became fast friends with Joy & Keith O'Malley, their daughter's Elizabeth and Katherine..Katherine was married to Richard.... Over the years we have visited back and forth - Around 1995 while researching my Scottish GRAY ancestors a ladie's name VEDA from Australia popped out at me, recalling that I had heard that strange name mentioned in the O'Malley family I continued my search to discover that Katherine's mother-in-law Veda was one and the same - imagine my surprise that after all those years of knowing Richard to find that he & I shared the same ancestors in Scotland and if I hadn't been doing my family tree to this day I would never of been the wiser that he and I were distant rellies.....

Relationships

In 1985 I met Colin who had finished a relationship with Pat Waldron whose birthday was the 11th November. My birthday 11th November. In 2000 I married George. His ex wife married a Graham Waldron. I used to live at 177 Balmoral Drive, George had lived at 177 Rotherhithe Street, London. My birthday 11th November My daughter 11th October My father 11th May My Mother 14th July My other daughter 14th April. My mother died 11th May (my father's brithday). Add 14 to 11 = my ex husband's birthday 25th October!

Distant Relatives

I live in Canada and while visiting Australia in the 1970's met and became fast friends with Joy & Keith O'Malley, their daughter's Elizabeth and Katherine..Katherine was married to Richard.... Over the years we have visited back and forth - Around 1995 while researching my Scottish GRAY ancestors a ladie's name VEDA from Australia popped out at me, recalling that I had heard that strange name mentioned in the O'Malley family I continued my search to discover that Katherine's mother-in-law Veda was one and the same - imagine my surprise that after all those years of knowing Richard to find that he & I shared the same ancestors in Scotland and if I hadn't been doing my family tree to this day I would never of been the wiser that he and I were distant rellies.....

Cousins reunited

While working as Local Studies Librarian in Waltham Forest one Friday afternoon in 2006, I made separate appointments for two couples. They didn't know one another and had different surnames, but when they got talking they found that two of them were cousins researching the same family line, and had been in touch by email. The library is very small so we can't accommodate more than 8 people at a time, and to the best of my knowledge neither couple visited before or afterwards. At closing time, we had to ease them out very gently, and recommend some good pubs and restaurants! Unfortunately I don't remember the exact date, or their names. David

Uncanny patterns - everywhere you go, you take the weather with you!

"Weather with you", the song by Crowded House, certainly resonates with me. I averr its not my fault, but how often must coincidence take place before you begin to wonder? The first time I ever went abroad was in November 2005, at the age of 22, having never even been to an airport prior to this. My group went to Orlando, Florida, for a fortnight. The warm weather had remained unseasonably present for a few weeks longer so it was "nice warm and dry" rather than too humid hot and rainy. The next year, I went to Malta for a week with a friend - an unusually protracted heatwave began the saturday our plane landed and ended the day after we flew home, meaning we had a week of glorious sunshine. The year after that, I went to Cyprus for a week, and watched nightly weather of the invisible line bisecting the Med - everything left was enduring rain and storms, everything right (including Cyprus) basked in an unusually high heatwave that ended two days after we flew home.

Strange or not?

We were on holiday in Barbados and whilst in a taxi got into conversation with the driver. After the usual "where are you from?" opener, he got more and more specific ("where are you from? - London - Where in London? - East London - Where in East London? etc.) It turned out that until a few months previously he'd worked as a London bus driver on a route we used all the time!

What's in a name?

We live in East London, and in the early 1980's were following what was allegedly Satus Quo's last tour. We went to see them in Ipswich. We were going both nights so we picked a B&B from the list we got from Tourist Info that seemed reasonably close to the venue. At breakfast the next day we were speaking to the owner, and somehow got onto names. My husband's family name is quite unusual so it was a big surprise when the man said - "Oh, I worked with a man of that name many years ago". He had worked with my husband's father (who by that time had been dead several years) on the overhead electrification on the Great Eastern Railway.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - unlikely chain of events

I was invited to spend a fortnight in Maryland by my Afrikaaner 3rd cousin, Terri Lucas, married to an American, in February 2003 (she stated they had had 8 years of mild winters!) After a great 1st week, the worst blizzard in 98 years hit the East Coast on the Sunday, as I was travelling by train from DC to New York to spend 2 nights there. I was able to return to DC by overnight train on the Tuesday morning, but when I got into the station I rang my cousin (who lived in Midtown, a tiny rural hamlet in Maryland) who advised the metro (tube system) wasn't running so she couldn't pick me up and I would have to take the train to Fredericksburg and get a taxi from there. I did so, and came up the steps from the train just as a taxi was pulling into the station car park.

Finding a gravestone in a cemetery

I visited Weaste cemetery in Salford, Lancashire (which is very large), where I was sure my family were buried, but did not know where. I was just wandering randomly about the cemetery when I found the stone of my great-grandfather's sister next to the path.

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