Chilling Murder Repeats Itself 157 Years Apart - tale of strange coincidence

[River Tyne Lass]

http://slemen.com/erdington.htm

https://twistedhistory.net.au/2019/01/20/coincidence-in-murder/

This chilling story of a murder story repeating itself 157 years apart first came to my email via pin interest and I googled it.

Quite an interesting although chilling tale of coincidence.

 Poor Mary, there seems to be a bit of a wagging finger about her fate in her memorial inscription:

'As a warning to female virtue and a humble monument to female chastity, this stone marks the grave of Mary Ashford who on the twentieth year of her age having incautiously repaired to a scene of amusement without proper protection, was brutally violated and murdered on 27th May 1817"

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16332725/mary-ashford

I wonder if anyone out there might have any surprising tales of coincidence in their own family history?

[Treetotal]

Very interesting, how times have changed.
Both my Paternal and Maternal Grandfathers were born in 1887, one in St. John's Nfld and the other one in Hull. They both died in 1937 a month short of their 50th Birthday! Both of their wives were named Margaret Ann!
Carol

[River Tyne Lass]

Thanks Treetotal for relating about the three (amended - four) coincidences with your Grandparents. Same birth & death year, age at death and wives with same name!  They sound like real experience twins!
This morning when I posted I couldn't  think of conincidences in my own line but I have now remembered that a missing Great Grandmother of mine was found to have married a man called Johnny and then later down the years her two Granddaughters (my maternal aunts) also married men called Johnny.

Also, a RootsChat coincidence .. recently another RootsChatter who I have contributed to help on their threads in the past, got in touch with me to let me know that we are related!!
It turns out that this person had chanced upon one of my threads and had noticed our connection.  We are both descended from Tyne Pilots.  It turns out that his ancestor was the older brother of my Great x 2 Grandfather!  How cool is that!! What a small world.  Of course, if we had both paid more attention to the names in each of our footers perhaps we might have realised our connection sooner.  Nice to meet a 'cousin' on here! 

[Treetotal]

That's great chance meeting, I love it when people find each other on here...a few years ago, I suggested to people on the photo board that they name their relative in the title of their post, as when people google that name it brings them here...and I have seen it happen on there a few times 
It may happen to me one day 
Carol

[Treetotal]

That's a great chance meeting, I love it when people find each other on here...a few years ago, I suggested to people on the photo board that they name their relative in the title of their post, as when people google that name it brings them here...and I have seen it happen on there a few times 
It may happen to me one day 
Carol

[Treetotal]

That's a great chance meeting, I love it when people find each other on here...a few years ago, I suggested to people on the photo board that they name their relative in the title of their post, as when people google that name it brings them here...and I have seen it happen on there a few times 
It may happen to me one day 
Carol

Ooops!...there is an echo in here 

Carol

[River Tyne Lass]

I think that is such a good idea .. certainly good enough to mention it twice. .  How fantastic it would be to chance upon a RootsChat photo of an ancestor that way.

This recent happening is my latest cousin.  Actually, since being on here I have discovered two RootsChat cousins!  The first is a descendant of my paternal Great x 2 Grandfather's younger brother. 

If I stay around long enough on RC I am hoping I can expand on my relatives no end! 

I wonder if anyone can beat that!

[Gan Yam]

My great grandfather was a train driver and was the driver of the express train in the 1915 rail disaster at Gretna. Family legend says he took the shift for another driver. There were 226 killed and 246 injured.  He was one of the injured, but luckily he wasn't seriously injured, but he died 4 years later on the anniversary of the accident. The accident was attributed to signalman error. 

13 years later his eldest son, my great uncle, and also a train driver took a shift for a sick friend. The train collided with another train and both drivers and fireman were killed.  The accident was attributed to signalman error!

Exactly one year later the driver who my great uncle had taken the shift for, volunteered for a shift on the same train, at the same time. As the train approached the site of the accident the previous year, he climbed on to the top of the train, stood up and was hit by a bridge, and died instantly.  He had felt so much guilt and remorse for the death of his friend! Gruesome!

[River Tyne Lass]

Ganyam, what an extraordinary story and so sad.  Hopefully, these days someone in your Great Uncle's position would be offered counselling to help with recovering from such an awful and tragic experience.  A much older lady once said to me that there was no such thing as stress in the old days and that people just got on with things.  I disagree though I think stress has always existed and it is just that nowadays we are generally more accepting that mental health is real and should be looked after and attended to just as much as physical health.