An old wedding...

On May 10, 1851, my great-great-great-grandparents, John Lord and Jane Lang, were married in Newark, New Jersey. They had immigrated to the US the year before, on the same ship. I'm not sure if they knew each other in Ireland, or if they met on the ship coming over, and stayed close in the interim between immigration and marriage.

That's the thing about genealogy, sometimes you learn something from documents, but have no real clue as to what actually went on. There's no old Lord Bible, or papers from a diary, to tell what the real story was.

Personally, I think they knew each other in Ireland, but that's just a guess.

Then, on May 10, 1890, the same John Lord passed away in East Newark, NJ. When you do genealogy for awhile, you're used to seeing coincidences of dates, they're more common than you'd think.

Jane Lord, wife of the aforementioned John Lord, died on March 16, 1912. That was exactly 59 years before I was born. Another date coincidence.

So, if John and Jane hadn't been married on this date, one hundred and fifty six years ago, I might not be sitting here right now, typing to you. That goes for any of my ancestors, on either side of the family. If just one thing had shifted, someone else (like me, but not *exactly* me) might be here, writing about their ancestors John and Jane being married on May 11th, or May 9th.

Kind of Twilight Zone-y, when you think about it....

If I have any photos of John or Jane, I'd put them up here, but I got nothing!