Who shares your birthday?

On my birthday I thought it might be interesting to see who else was born on 10th March.  In my CLOSE one-name study I found 23 individuals with the CLOSE surname who share my birthday - not counting the spouses who became CLOSE by marriage.  I suppose when you have over 20,000 people in a database (although of course for many I don't have an exact birth date) there are bound to be quite a number born on any given date in the year.


I made the count using one of the tools offered by RootsMagic: an 'on this day' list - which lists not only the March 10th births in my own one-name study database but also a long list of famous people born on the same day.  As I browsed through the list, I came across one I already knew about: Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex; I'm old enough to remember his birth being announced in 1964.  Then I spotted the conductor Sir Charles Groves, and as a music-lover I was pleased to share his birthday.  The next name which caught my eye was Sepp Blatter - not so sure about sharing with him - and from then on it got steadily worse:  it turns out that I share a birthday not only with the assassin James Earl Ray, but also with Osama bin Laden.  Oh dear - let's get back to the one-name study ....


Pictured here is my great-uncle Thomas CLOSE, born in Horwich, Lancashire on 10th March 1864.  In 1881 he was a railway goods clerk, and by 1891 he had progressed to the level of station master.

Who do you share a birthday with? - after reading of my experience maybe you'd rather not know!


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An enterprising Sunderland shipwright - Robert CLOSE 1825-1894.

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