Coincidence

I have been conducting family history research since the 1980's. Prior to this date, I had been living in London for some years.

In the 1980's I had now reached an age where one wants to fill in the missing gaps in family knowledge. Imagine my surprise - when I discovered that I had been living and working in the districts where my ancestors in London had lived!

Recently other family history researchers have mentioned to me that they have observed the same situation within their own families. Without knowing the addresses of the people gone before, present day family members unconsciously seem to gravitate back to the same areas in quite an uncanny fashion.

London is a large place, the chances of "happening" to live in the same area as previous family members seems somewhat unlikely.

In case, this whets your appetite to check your own family, I'll give a few examples.

Shortly after leaving school I decided to go on a working holiday starting in the U.K.

On arriving in England in 1966, I lived back to back with the London Church in Bloomsbury where my great-great-grandparents (WILLIAM MICHAEL TOLLNER and MARY HILLIAR) had married in 1837 and where his father, JOHN TOLLNER, is buried in the vault. For 6 years, I passed the Church many times each day.

When I left that accommodation and moved to a new flat, frequently I passed the London Church where my great-great-grandparents (HENRY SHUTTLEWORTH and ELEANOR BUTLER) had married at Marylebone in 1843. In fact, I lived in this vicinity for 3 years and then later was associated with the same district for 9 years.

The area I first worked in, in London, was Holborn, Hatton Garden, Fleet Street, near Leather Lane - the areas where Eleanor Butler's father THOMAS BUTLER (a printer) had lived and worked in the 1820's. In fact, HENRY SHUTTLEWORTH had been a jeweller at the time of his marriage. Possibly he had worked at Hatton Garden prior to 1843.

For years, to get to and fro, between home and work place, I travelled along Oxford Street, where my 1820 Settler ancestor, MARIA ANN SHEPPERSON, had been born in 1797. Several times I actually worked in Oxford Street. For most of the years spent in London, I lived and worked within walking distance of Oxford Street.

In fact the only time I did not live in walking distance of Oxford Street in all the years I lived in London - I was in the London districts frequented by JOHN TOLLNER such as Regent's Park. He had been born in 1772 and baptised in one of the many Parish Churches bordering Oxford Street.

Before returning to South Africa, for 8 years I worked for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, their premises were located in Bloomsbury, later they re-located to Lambeth.

You've guessed!

Before HENRY SHUTTLEWORTH and ELEANOR BUTLER departed for South Africa as Natal Byrne Settlers in 1850 - they lived in Bloomsbury and then Lambeth!

It doesn't seem to stop there. When a friend of mine re-located from Durban to the UK in recent years, she asked me to visit her once she had found a new home (which I did). She had decided to live in Newport, Monmouthshire - birthplace of my great-grandmother, Charlotte Rodway and many of her ancestors.

Recently when I tried to locate a Research Society in Edinburgh that I had contacted 20 years ago, I discovered they were no longer operating.

However, the postal services forwarded my letter to one of this Society's previous researchers.

This Edinburgh researcher just happened to have a photograph of her grandfather on the farm in Wigtownshire previously occupied by my great-great-grandparents ALEXANDER GIFFORD and MARY GORDON before they departed for South Africa in 1850.

In addition, a friend (of a friend of this particular researcher) also happened to be related to my great-great-great-grandparents DONALD McKAY and CATHERINE DUNCAN in Sutherlandshire and had exactly the information (not in written records) I was seeking.

As so many of my Ancestors were from Scotland, over the years I toyed with the idea of living in Scotland for a while.

If you cannot find me at any time in the future, try looking in Argyle Street in St. Andrews, Fife.

As generations of my Ancestors lived there, to judge from previous experience, I am bound to turn up there sooner or later!

I lived across the road from the British Museum in London for 6 years, and became very interested in Egyptology as a result. With the changes in scientific possibility, I am therefore seriously considering getting my DNA tested to see if the mummies housed there - are possibly distant relatives?!!!

Delyse Brown