Eleven years ago I decided that it was time to flee our rat-race hometown and settle where life is simpler, where strangers greet you with a warm hello, where the roads are less travelled, and where I didn't have to listen to the 24/7 blarings of ambulences, police sirens, and the constant drowning out of low-flying planes that flew in and out of the nearby major airports (3 of them !!). I needed to return to the peace and quiet of my childhood's hometown atmosphere. Where you could leave your doors open at night, walk to a mailbox without being stalked. Where you could say "Good morning" and not find 2 steely eyes glaring back as if you had just uttered the most vulgar of sentences.

In doing this research I've discovered that I'm about a 2 hour drive from the hometown of our grandaunt. Was this coincidence that I settled down so close to our favorite grandaunt's hometown?

I've also found myself, without prior planning, ending up near towns that our ancestors & relatives lived in.

We are vanners and from April through October, we travel the country, attending weekend camp-outs, sometimes at campsites, but mostly at fairgrounds or racetracks. I don't attend too many of these events, since I detest the summer, and am allergic to most things, including all those nasty insects that come out in droves, the minute the weather warms up. I have often found myself terribly sick due to 113 degree heat or the 98 degree heat with 100% humidity. Yet, the events that I did attend, somehow brought me to towns that were no more than a few hours drive from where our ancestors settled after immigrating from overseas.

My first realization was when I went to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1995 . It was a horrendous weekend, with the temperature climbing to 113 degrees. Shade was almost non-existant. If only I had realized, at the time, that we were so close to where our great-grandmother was born, we could've taken a trip to her hometown, and perhaps gotten some relief from the heat. I would've loved to have seen the street that she grew up on. Seen the town that she and our great-great-grandparents lived in. I had attended this event, only because it was my first opportunity to go further west than I had ever been - that being the Catskill mountains in NY State !! I had travelled north to Canada, and as far south as Florida, but I was stuck in "east coast" mode. This was my big opportunity to push further west. Was this coincidence - spending a weekend so close to our ancestor's hometown?

Another opportunity arose, when I would be able to push my "westward ho" trek to St. Louis, MO. Again, the heat was a factor. But here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see our country for the first time. I couldn't believe it when I discovered that we were driving through the city and state of a great-granduncle and ended up not too far south from where our great-grandfather was born !! Was this coincidence that the annual major van event was to, again, take place so close to an ancestral home?

We were big Nascar fans, in the days of the Winston Cup (which I still acknowledge as the only true cup of Nascar). Again, to my amazement, I found many of the races were held in cities near-by our ancestral hometowns. Was it coincidence, that I became a fan of Nascar, when I didn't have a clue, at that time, as to where our ancestors lived?

I have experienced so many astonishing "coincidences" in my lifetime, that I tossed the "it's just a coincidence" belief out the window decades ago. For me, there is no such thing as coincidence.

For those of you who dismiss anything other than "it's just a coincidence", try doing this research. Then think back to where you've been, what drew you to where you were or are now, to the different "signs" that just seem too coincidental. You just might become a believer.

In 2007, we attended a van event in upstate NY. My significant other had mused that he wanted to check out a monument that stood out, along the horizon. It had been many years since I had attended this event - this was one of the two 4-day events of the season. I looked over at the monument and thought what a great idea !! The next day, we headed out to find this landmark. What we found was not only an historic revolutionary site, but also included a huge cemetery. The monument was there to mark a battle - one in which American forces led to the disarming of British forces on October 17, 1777, and marked a crucial victory in winning American independence.

It was getting hotter out, I was tired, having had little sleep the night before, and just couldn't bring my mind and body around to the thought of traversing this extremely large cemetery. Instead, I rested a bit, then decided that I would just take a short walk to see if I could find some really old headstones to take some pictures of. And then something caught my eye - a single, tall, slender, grave marker. I took a picture of it, then decided to walk over to it, to see what was written on it. I almost fell over. Of all the headstones & markers in this cemetery, the one that caught my eye, turned out to have a relative's surname chiseled on it, along with his 2 wives !! Coincidence? I haven't been able to prove a connection, but just the thought of possibly connecting 2 relatives - one on the east coast to one on the west coast - is intriguing. What made me decide to attend this event for the first time in over a decade? Why did my significant other, decide, after all those years, to choose this weekend to check out the monument? He had been attending this particular event for over 15 years !! At the time that I had initially attended this event, I didn't even know the surname of our relative !! Several years later, I discovered the name.. And now here it was - staring at me !!  Coincidence?