FactLeaks

The Mayflower is remembered as a beginning. It was almost an ending. In 1620, the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic carrying 102 passengers to what is now New England. The ship arrived off Cape Cod after weeks of cold, damp confinement.

Conditions onboard were brutal, and survival did not improve on land. Disease and starvation swept through the settlement during the first winter, killing nearly half of those who had made the journey.

Only 26 families lived long enough to leave surviving descendants. One concrete detail often overlooked is that a child, Oceanus Hopkins, was born at sea during the crossing, a reminder of how narrow the margin between life and death already was.

Despite the losses, those surviving families formed dense networks, recorded births, and intermarried within growing communities. Historians can trace the lines. They still debate the scale of the legacy. What began as a fragile settlement now connects tens of millions to a moment that almost disappeared.

We expect lives to diverge when circumstances do. In this case, separation produced symmetry. In 1979, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, identical twins born in Ohio in 1940, reunited at age 39 after being adopted by different families.

Raised just 40 miles apart, they had never met. Yet their adult lives appeared uncannily aligned.

Both married women named Linda, divorced, and later married women named Betty. Each named a son James Alan. As children, both had dogs named Toy. They shared woodworking as a hobby, disliked spelling, bit their nails, and suffered similar tension headaches. Even their cars matched, light blue Chevrolets.

The case drew the attention of psychologist Thomas Bouchard Jr., who studied the twins firsthand. The facts are documented. The mechanism is not fully agreed upon. Environment explains some choices. Genetics explains others. The boundary between them remains unsettled.