Cousins

Tenyears ago I was living on a tiny island in Queensland.One day I was on the bus to the jetty and the only other passengers were a nice couple who helped me with my shopping.They were only staying on the island for three days.We realised we were both originally from UK and had some things in common.They came for lunch next day and the coincidences just continued amaze us.We had both lived in UK ,New Zealand and Australia withing a few miles of each other.Her cousins,who she lived with for a while, went to school with my brother and his future wife.The cousins grandparents (not hers) lived next door to my sister in laws parents and had the same last name.I had worked for the same company as Maureens former husband and we had gone on the same company outing to North Wales.These are only a very few of the coincidences we shared, our lives had travelled side by side for over 60 years. We became firm friends,almost sisters and we shared a strong interest in genealogy.A few months ago I decided to go further back with my maternal grandmothers family, I discovered my 3x great grandmother had the same last name as Maureens ancestors.When she checked her family tree she found her 3x great grandmother and mine were sisters.The Tudor house they lived in is open to the public and was my mothers favoutite place to visit.We often took my school friend with us so two years ago when I was visiting UK Margaret and Jim took me to Speke Hall for lunch as a memory of the happy days we spent there.I did not know then my connection with it.I wish my mother had known her ancestors had lived there.