# The coincidence thread.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333 "2003-08-11T05:45:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/1 "2003-08-11T05:45:34Z")
This thread is mostly inspired by the fact that today (Aug. 10) is the birthday of all five children in the Debly-Martin family. Quintuplets, you think? Nope! A set of twins (Telisa and Irisa), and a set of triplets born on the twins’ third birthday. (Autumn, Kyla, and Zev) [Cite 1](http://archonrealm.tripod.com/cathink2.htm) (search for the surname or the kids’ name in the page… I don’t remember where exactly it is on the page) [Cite 2](http://mypage.direct.ca/c/csamson/multiples.html) (go to the “Multiple Multiples” tab on the left of the page, and search for the surname on the kids’ names) What are the odds? (this is a rhetorical question… please don’t attempt to answer unless you REALLY want to!) I mean, I can see singleton siblings born on other singleton siblings’ birthdays. (my friends Connie and Jenny are like that… both born on July 23, but two years apart in age) Twins born on their singleton siblings’ birthdays, I can also see. But **triplets** born on their **twin** siblings’ birthday? That’s definitely way cool… or maybe I _am_ too obsessed with multiples. (like SOME people seem to think) So are there any coincidences in your life, or in your friends’ lives? Feel free to post them up here. 🙂 (I have a whole chapter in my _Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Encyclopedia of the Bizarre_ dedicated to coincidences, and I might be putting them up here later, depending) F\_X ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/2 "2003-08-11T09:30:23Z")
[annoying geek mode] Umm…odds are 1 in 365? There is a [50-50 chance](http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.birthdayprob.html) that two people will have the same birthday in any random group of 23 people. [/annoying geek mode] That aside, it truly is a staggering coincidence that 5 kids who aren’t quintuplets have the same birthday. (Just imagine if it were 5 single births?) I suppose George Foreman doesn’t count… I always found the most jarring coincidences to be running into people I know at massive (50,000+ people) concerts. Obviously it’s a given we had similar taste in music, but it always caught me out of the blue. (Perhaps it was the drugs…) ---
**Author:** ![that.sound.again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e5b9ba/32.png) [@that.sound.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/that.sound.again)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/3 "2003-08-11T10:22:54Z")
Maybe it’s not such a coincidence after all? Does November 10 happen to be mr. and mrs. Debly-Martin’s anniversary… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/4 "2003-08-11T19:36:54Z")
I have NO idea if Mr. and Mrs. Debly-Martin’s anniversary is around Nov. 10. 😉 **Ellis Dee** , the “five single births” thing reminds me of what’s in my book that I mentioned before. > [@](#): > > Happy, happy, happy birthday! Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Bisch of Santa Rosa, California have three children, all with the same birthday: Peggy (May 28, 1954), Scott (May 28, 1958), and Kristine (May 28, 1959). The odds against three children in the same family being born on the same date are twenty-eight million to one. So if the odds are THAT staggering for three single births in the same family being born on the same date… imagine for the Debly-Martin family. Actually, that reminds me of something I read once in a _Guinness World Records_ book which involved Leap Year babies in a single family. Not sure where it is, so maybe later. Any more coincidences or stories? F\_X ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/5 "2003-08-11T23:01:10Z")
In the middle of the night I woke up, and from my bed I could see my mum stood at the top of the stairs. I heard my dad’s voice coming from downstairs saying the police were here. I went back to sleep and the next morning I asked my dad what the police had wanted. He told me I must have dreamt it. That night the police DID turn up at 3am. And it happened exactly the way I had already seen it. ---
**Author:** ![j\_sum1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/6 "2003-08-12T05:00:40Z")
## quote: ## Happy, happy, happy birthday! Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Bisch of Santa Rosa, California have three children, all with the same birthday: Peggy (May 28, 1954), Scott (May 28, 1958), and Kristine (May 28, 1959). The odds against three children in the same family being born on the same date are twenty-eight million to one. Well someone doesn’t know their math. The odds are 133225 to one. First kid can be born any doay of the year. Second kid has a 1 in 365 chance of having same birthday. Third kid has 1 in 365 chance of being the same as the first two. And that’s assuming the birthdays are independent. If nine months before May 28 happened to be a “special day”, well the chances are even better. One in a hundred thousand isn’t that rare. There must be many more three-child families than that. Such an occurance is notable however and likely to be reported. So there is a pretty good chance of hearing such a story. On the other hand, I vaguely recall in the Guiness Book of Records a family – Mum, Dad and three kids. All with birthday on February 29th. My guess is that they were targeting the day. ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/7 "2003-08-12T11:14:05Z")
j\_sum1: The only thought I have in regards to your odds is that you’re only accounting for the day of the birth, but what about inception and the simple odds of getting pregnant? ---
**Author:** ![Amberlei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@Amberlei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amberlei)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/8 "2003-08-12T16:30:44Z")
And the odds of having a multiple birth? ---
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/9 "2003-08-12T17:20:38Z")
I have 5 kids and 4 of them were born 5 days after a holiday. The other child was born on the 5th of the month. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/10 "2003-08-12T17:26:08Z")
I called my friend John’s house looking for my husband. He answered the phone and I said “Hi John- it’s Suzette!” and made some small talk. He was all like “Hi there!” like in a weird sexy kind of way. I thought it was really odd, so I just said “Is my husband there??” and he about dropped the phone. I got talking to my husband later and what happened was this: John has a ROOMMATE named John, too. Said roommate met a girl out a week prior named Suzette (not a common name at all). He thought I was her calling to hook up with him until I asked for my husband. I thought it was an incredibly weird coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/11 "2003-08-19T03:34:07Z")
Second try at submitting this post, since my computer was acting all screwy the first time. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by j\_sum1 \* > On the other hand, I vaguely recall in the Guiness Book of Records a family – Mum, Dad and three kids. All with birthday on February 29th. My guess is that they were targeting the day. \*\* Yeah… I remember vaguely hearing about that myself. Today (Aug. 18) is the birthday of five people I know from my church’s English congregation. Andrew, Brian, Cindy, Darren, and Fidela were all born within five years of each other. Granted, Andrew and Brian are twins. We haven’t seen much of them since their dad Mark’s death a few years ago, either. But the coincidence sounds pretty cool, all the same. Then again, there are four people in the church (Rosana, Tony, Chung Yan, and Juliana) who have a Chirstmas birthday. Two of them (Chung Yan and Tony) were even born in the same year. F\_X ---
**Author:** ![deb2world](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@deb2world](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deb2world)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/12 "2003-08-19T04:03:55Z")
there are 7 of us kids. Oldest sis was born on 18th 2nd boy born on 23rd next boy born on 23rd next boy born on 18th me born on 11th next boy born on 23rd next girl born on 23rd (boy 6 and girl 7 born on same day, 4 yrs apart) Mom born on 18th Dad born on 23rd Mom and Dad anniversary 18th see a pattern here, see the odd one out. I think I now have more proof I am not really their child and the stork messed up his/her delivery 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-coincidence-thread/194333/13 "2003-08-26T22:58:43Z")
Hah, you never know what could have happened… 🙂 That reminds me of this family I know. The parents’ birthdays and anniversary, plus the birthday of two of their three kids are all in August. The middle child has his birthday in April, so he’s the odd one out. F\_X