I am always fascinated when I see that two people in my family tree end up in essentially the same place at the same time when there is no logical shared connection to that location. I'm not talking about someone from South Dakota bumping in to someone from Iowa; things a little more off the beaten path. It is as though there is more that might draw us to a place than what we instinctively process. Like the way the North American monarch butterfly can find its way to its ancesteral nesting ground.
What innate abilities might we possess that draw us towards each other, or to the same places?
I've come across many such instances in my research. I'll use this single post to start documenting them. So if this also interests you, bookmark this link and come back in a few months, and see what other cousins you could have walked right by and never knew.
Same Place, Case #1, Stroh descendants (Part I)
Added: June 16, 2025
Jurgen Stroh was born in Germany in the early 1800s. In 1852, he married Margaretta Mohr. They were my (3x) great-great-great-grandparents. Their daughter, Magdalene ("Lena") married Johann Krabbenhoft; the couple immigrated to the United States in 1895, bringing along their two month old daughter, Freda. The Krabbenhofts, and then Manns, settled in the southwest corner of Minnesota, mostly Rock County. Bernice gave birth to my mother, Patsy. Patsy traded midwestern living for being a military wife, bouncing around from place to place throughout her adulthood. Around 2010, she moved to a Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) suburb, Roanoke, landing there to be closer to her DFW grandkids; after the COVID pandemic in 2020, she left Texas to devote time to her Tennessee-based granddaughters. In summary, Patsy's relevant ancestral journey was Germany to Minnesota to Roanoke, Texas (a town with a population of about 10,000 people).
Going back to the 1800s, Lena had a brother, Christ Stroeh. As best I can tell, Christ left Germany in 1882 and settled in the same southwest corner of Minnesota, Rock County. Christ's daughter, Kate, married in 1912 and made her marital home in Erie, North Dakota. Kate's eldest daughter, Esther, married another Midwesterner, and they appear to have spent most of their life in the Midwest between North Dakota and Minnesota. However, sometime in the 1960s, records show some of Esther Becker's children have started moving west. A daughter marries in 1967 in Colorado Springs; her sister attends the wedding and is then shown in the 1970s as making Colorado Springs her home. By the 1990s, there are records that all the Becker children had made Colorado home; their parents, however, had made left Midwest life for a Texan rodeo. Perhaps, a Texas visit to see their grandmother, Esther Petersen Becker, inspired her granddaughter to also make Texas home, because in 2007 to 2020 Esther's granddaughter, T. Becker, lived in the DFW suburb of Roanoke. The same little 10,000 person town my mother landed in during those same years. In summary, T. Becker's relevant ancestral journey was Germany to the Midwest to Colorado to Roanoke, Texas.
T. Becker's posted address was less than 5 miles from my mother's work. Third cousins once removed, born about 15 years apart, started life in Minnesota, and then spent a decade 800 miles away from their ancestor's immigration site, probably shopping at the same stores, and eating from the same BBQ joints, going to the same Grapevine Lake, and now thinking "I might've walked right past you, cuz!"
*************
Since T. Becker and Patsy are still living, full identifiable information not disclosed in this public forum.
Same Place, Case #1, Stroh descendants (Part II)
Added: June 17, 2025
Well, this got even more interesting quickly.
I continued to research the Esther Petersen Becker branch of the family tree, but focused on her other children. Turns out that one of Esther's other grandchildren, T.D. Becker married a lady, I'll call "B.B." Turns out that B.B. lived in Coppell, Texas, a small DFW suburb; the same little suburb where I raised my family. We lived there for 14 years.
I haven't been able to determine yet, when B.B. lived there, but she lived in a neighborhood that we called the "Bird Streets". The same neighborhood where my daughter's then boyfriend lived. I bet I drove by that distant cousin's house 30-40 times.
4th cousins, yes! Some weird unknown connection, for sure.
Same Place, Case #1, Stroh descendants (Part III)
Added: June 18, 2025
Well, the story continues. So I started researching T.D. Becker's brother, and found that his brother's wife, Mrs. Becker, lived in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. The same Denver surburb where my brother lived in (twice).
So that means three of Esther Petersen Becker's grandchildren lived in the same towns as my mother in Texas, myself in Texas, and my brother in Colorado. That's a weird set of coincidences.
Same Place, Case #2, Girard, Kansas
Added: June 30, 2025
This story is even more of a head-scratching, incredible, coincidence than the first one. It's a bit of a twisted, winding path that connects two of my children.
How did two unrelated persons from the small town of Girard, Kansas (population 3,161) end up with their great-grandchildren sharing holidays together outside Washington D.C. 100 years later?
In the diagram below, all the people marked in green have been spending holidays together for about the past 5 years. The two orange boxes reflect two completely unrelated persons, who happened to be listed in the 1920 US Census three pages apart from each other.
Child A has never desired to know her biologic father's family history until a different weird coincidence had me start researching this weekend. This child has lived in New Mexico, Texas, and Washington, D.C. with no known Kansas connections before today. My family and my spouse's families also have no known Kansas connection. So today, when I came across a record that said Child A's great-grandfather lived temporarily in Girard, Kansas when he was 6 years old, I thought, how odd? I remember coming across that town before.
First, checking the population, and then seeing how small it is and was, I went to my tree to see who else had records from Girard, Kansas. And that is the Shideler family. The Shidelers were the step-great-grandparents of my daughter-in-law ("DIL"). Twisted?
So my son, Child B, is not biologically related to me. He married his wife (my DIL) in New Mexico. After my son and DIL were married, a few years later, my DIL's mother married, adding a stepfather to my DIL's tree. The stepfather and DIL's mother met and married in New Mexico. And together, them plus my husband and I, are the lucky grandparents of Child B & DIL's 3 amazing grandsons.
The three amazing grandchildren became unquenchable draws for both sets of grandparents, and we all picked up and moved to be closer to Child A & B, who live outside of Washington, D.C. where we spend nearly every holiday together.
Two families completely unrelated are listed 3 pages apart from each other in the 1920 US Census records of Girard, Kansas, and fast forward, 100 years, and their great-grandchildren, share nearly every holiday together outside of Washington D.C.
A very very odd coincidence indeed.
Same Place, Case #3, D'Arcy
Added: June 30, 2025
Having vehemently denied providing her genealogy-obssesed mother with a genetic DNA sample, I feel compelled to elaborate on the weird coincidence discussed above in case #2, which resulted in Child A being suddenly interested in her biologic father's family history. Recently, Child A became aware that she had more biologic cousins than she had been aware of, which prompted a small desire for some basic family history answers.
Child A learned that her biologic paternal grandmother was born a D'Arcy, something she never knew. And something that was pretty surprising, since Child A's new roommate is also a D'Arcy.
So we looked up how common that name is and it turns out, only 7,985 in the WORLD have the D'Arcy surname; in the US, there are only 689 D'Arcys.
So what are the odds that two D'Arcys, also completely unrelated and previously unknown to each other, would end up roommates in Washington DC?
Things are getting spooky.
Comments
Post a Comment