Amusing Little Coincidence

YankeeReb

Cadet
Joined
May 11, 2016
I set out to prove (or disprove) the things written in a biographical sketch about my great-great grandfather, William S. Morgan. The sketch claimed he was in the 6th Missouri Cavalry under Capt. William L. Jeffries. The story goes that my great-great grandfather was captured at Lake Providence and was in the old Irwin block for twenty one days before orders came down to move him to Camp Douglas in Illinois. William never made it to Camp Douglas. He was exchanged at Cairo.

One thing was disproven very quickly after I began my research. The sketch had the wrong regiment. William served in the 8th Missouri Cavalry. That resolved, I began browsing prisoner of war records available on Family Search. I couldn't find anything. Popped over to Ancestry and got a hint. The link took me to Fold3 where I was able to view William's compiled service record. That's when I noticed it. The amusing coincidence. William was at Pocahontas, Arkansas, in late 1862. No big deal, right? Well, one of my great-grandmothers was born in Pocahontas in May 1863. Still no big deal, right? Wait for it . . .

The great-grandmother who was born in Pocahontas would become William's daughter-in-law by marrying my great-grandfather.
 
Welcome to the forum, even though my head feels like you gave it a math problem to solve at 4 a.m. :nerd: Keeping track of who was who and where always does that. Family stories are always amazing to me and you have a great one- thanks for bringing it here.
 
Isn't it great fun to find something totally unexpected? Last summer I was taking a second look at my husband's family tree and zeroed in on a name that looked familiar. I checked it out further and discovered that our families intersected and branched off at another point. It wasn't even a blood relative on my part, but it was still a fun and unexpected find.

Let's see if I can get this right--my husband's great-grandmother's cousin married the step-grandson of my 3X great-grandmother's second husband. (Yes, it's complicated. :wink:) I found newspaper articles showing frequent trips from Illinois back to West Virginia to visit family, which surely would have included visits with my 3X great-grandmother. Connected up on both sides, and still no photos!
 
It's always fun to find coincidences! The world used to be a much smaller place.

Let's see - I'm my husband's tenth cousin. My great-great-grandfather's doctor at the time of his death was the father of the woman who would one day marry his son - in fact he sued his future in-laws for malpractice!

I think my favorite coincidence so far was that I was looking through an old autograph book which was given to my great-grandmother, Guy Claudia Sawyer, as a child in the last decade of the 19th century. Like a typical young girl, she mostly went around to her friends and neighbors getting people to write in it. Some posted lovely Victorian cutouts, some wrote riddles, just like signing a yearbook today. Many of the handwriting samples are incredibly beautiful. People back then had everyday writing which looks like fine calligraphy today. She seems to have kept her interest in it for several years. When she was eleven, an older boy wrote her a love poem. Later the same boy wrote teasingly that she was a crybaby. I noticed his entries because his handwriting was terrible! Then I realized the child poet with terrible handwriting was her future husband, my great-grandfather Tom Landrum. Since both Guy and Tom died before I was born, it's really special to have this glimpse of their childhood.
 
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