An unknown cousin
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.
As a prologue, I have explain that I inherited rather distinctive last name. Chances are, that if we share my last name, we're related.
In the 90s, I worked my way through college working in a gas station. Routinely, people would pas for gasoline with a credit card, so I would learn the names of random people.
One day, a gentleman handed me his credit card. In processing his purchase, I noted we shared a last name. When I told him this, he didn't believe me. I had to show him my driver's license to prove it.
A bit of genealogical research (done by my father) proved that he was a previously unknown cousin. His family descended from a brother of my great-great grandfather that left Poland at the end of the 19th century. He was a recent immigrant to America and stumbled across me in Michigan.
Date submitted:Wed, 24 Feb 2016 00:57:01 +0000Coincidence ID:8432
