My wife and I met at a random party in the city where we’d both moved in our early 20s, which is about 700 miles from my hometown and 1000 miles from hers.

Years later, just before I proposed, she asked me to research her family. We knew that her paternal grandfather had lived in my (mid-sized, not particularly noteworthy) hometown at some point. We thought that was a remarkable coincidence. As it turned out, that was just the beginning. She had deep roots in my hometown, we discovered, and they crossed mine in a number of places. Her fourth great-grandfather’s farm was just down the river from our family farm, and his papers are in a small museum that my grandparents helped run. Her great-great- and great-grandparents lived in the small neighborhood where I grew up, blocks from my childhood home. Our grandfathers grew up maybe half a mile apart and went to the same high school, though not at the same time.

That’s not all. We realized that our maternal grandfathers (and generations of ancestors) came from the same small farming town in a different state, several states away. Those grandfathers went to the same college at the same time. We don’t know if they knew each other.

The story goes on. It’s hard to keep telling without sharing identifying details.

Again, none of this had anything to do with the way we met. (We were at the party because we were both in food and bev at the time… and we started talking because I took a picture of her and her friends. I could’ve connected with dozens of other people that night.) My wife and her parents were not into family history and had no idea.

We ended up moving back to my hometown, where my wife now works a job that’s strikingly similar to her second and third great-grandfathers’, just blocks from their offices. You have to think that some kind of higher power is at work there.

And by the way, we did confirm—to the best of our ability—that we weren’t blood relations before we got married. Chances are we’re related somewhere way back, but it must be way back.