I wouldn't be here if..........

[Gillg]

I wouldn't be here if my widowed gt-grandmother hadn't left her Huntingdonshire village home with her 8 children to live in Burnley, Lancs., where they all found employment (ag labs were going out of fashion).  My grandfather became an apprentice draper.  One day a milliner's apprentice was sent to the draper's shop to buy some hat trimmings.  It was love at first sight and they married aged 19 & 20.  Well, they had to - their first child was born 3 months after the wedding!
Not a dramatic story like some on this thread.  Just a simple everyday tale.

[emeltom]

I probably wouldn't be here if my gt gt grandparents hadn't been first cousins. He lived in Liverpool and she lived in Bury and I doubt if they would ever had met each other if there hadn't been that family connection - her father and his mother were brother and sister.

Emeltom

[groom]

I wouldn't be here if my widowed gt-grandmother hadn't left her Huntingdonshire village home with her 8 children to live in Burnley, Lancs., where they all found employment (ag labs were going out of fashion).  My grandfather became an apprentice draper.  One day a milliner's apprentice was sent to the draper's shop to buy some hat trimmings.  It was love at first sight and they married aged 19 & 20.  Well, they had to - their first child was born 3 months after the wedding!
Not a dramatic story like some on this thread.  Just a simple everyday tale.

I suppose when you think about it, most of us wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for things like that. My great x3 grandfather was born in Yarmouth, lived in London as a child but by the age of 20 was in Liverpool, where he married. His son then became a mariner, sailed backwards and forwards to London where he met and married my great x 2 grandmother.
On my maternal side my 2x great grandmother was born in London but in her 20s was working as a servant in a rectory in a small Suffolk village, where she met  her future husband. After his death she returned to London with their 4 children..
It does make you stop and think sometimes, that if anyone along the line had made a different decision, life would have been very different.

[clairec666]

Both my sets of grandparents met because of WW2. Both grandfathers were in the RAF and this led to them meeting their future wives.

A generation before that, I strongly suspect that one of my sets of great-grandparents met because of WW1, but I have no proof.

I also exist because of the railway. In the 1880s my g-g-grandfather moved to Surrey to work on the railways, and it was there that he met and married my g-g-grandmother. Another set of g-g-grandparents moved from a rural area to a town that was becoming a popular resort due to the arrival of the railway.

[IgorStrav]

For me, this thread confirms yet again - and often I need it confirming - that far from it being a significant event that I am here in this world, it's just pure chance.

A few small changes, and it wouldn't be me at all.

Thank you to all of my ancestors who acted as they did, suffered and carried on as they did, refused to be put down, for producing this result. 

I'll try and make myself just a little bit worthy of you.

[Redroger]

Further back had Napoleon not threatened invasion my 2x great grandfather would not have joined the Somerset Militia and moved from Somerset to Alford Lincs where he met and marriedy 2great grandmotger

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Slightly off topic, but I would love to know how my grandfather's cousin, a petty officer coming to the end of his 20 years in the navy, and with most of his relatives in Kent, came to meet and marry a woman born and brought up in Camberwell, London. My only thought is that she was in service somewhere.

[Rena]

  Slightly off topic, but I would love to know how my grandfather's cousin, a petty officer coming to the end of his 20 years in the navy, and with most of his relatives in Kent, came to meet and marry a woman born and brought up in Camberwell, London. My only thought is that she was in service somewhere.

I have that situation of working in a large London house too  = a Yorkshire lass married in London but who came back home to have her first child and the vicar kindly noted that father was a servant in London.

Having said that, I can offer an alternative;  If you look at genuki it states that:-

""HERNE HILL, a hamlet and suburban district in the parish of Camberwell, county Surrey, 3 miles S. of St. Paul's, London. It is a station on the London, Chatham, and Dover railway.

The groom's ship might have had a refit in Chatham Docks and his intended bride just happened to work nearby or usually travelled to Chatham for a regular market or a social event.   

Currently it's  an approx 28 miles train ride taking approx one hour - and that's after the Beeching cuts.

[Jang]

… my Swiss great grandfather hadn't emigrated to Australia, returned home, then emigrated again to the goldfields at Castlemaine, where he met my great grandmother. They married there in 1863 - interestingly the minister was Patrick Smythe, of Eureka Stockade fame.