My Grandma and her long lost brother.

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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.

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Last year, my Grandma found out that she had a brother she didn't know about, after his children got in contact through one of the ancestry research websites. Her parents had him very young and out of wedlock so had to give him up for adoption. Her father then went to India and 20 years later, after he had returned and married my great-grandmother, my Grandma was born. Her parents never told her about him and my Grandma's brother died before she could meet him but she has met his children, who are her niece and nephew, only to discover a series of coincidences. Both my Grandma and her brother were born on the 7th June, only 20 years apart. His first name was Herbert, which is my Grandma's surname, since she got married. They both lived in the same town for a while, only a 2 minute walk away, completely unaware of each other's existence and her daughter and his daughter (my aunt and her cousin) knew each other as they had both taught at the same school for a while, completely unaware that they were cousins.
Total votes: 248
Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:09:16 +0000Coincidence ID:4360