Jim Twins
The Jim Twins of Ohio were reunited at age 39, after being separated at birth. When they got to talking, they found that they had lived identical lives!
So Far Apart, Yet Always Together
So, nature versus nurture debaters, what do you make of this one? When two twin boys were put up for adoption in 1940, at only three weeks old, their adoptive parents coincidentally named them both James. Both men came to be named Jim for short, and that was just the start of it. The two would grow up only 40 miles apart from each other, and go on to live lives that were spookily similar.
One of the boys was adopted by the Lewises of Lima, and the other by the Springers of Piqua. Both families knew that the child they adopted had a twin, but did not know what became of them. From there, though their paths had diverged, they unknowingly forged lives as identical as their DNA.
Both had beloved childhood dogs named Toy, and as schoolchildren, both had a proclivity for math and woodworking but were no great shakes at spelling. If their childhoods were uncannily similar, though, then their early adulthoods were truly remarkable.
Twin Hearts, Twin Minds
Both Jims had married twice. The first time, they married women named Linda. When this didn’t work out and they divorced, they met (and went on to marry) women named Betty. Both Jim Lewis and Jim Springer had a son, and –I’m sure you saw this coming—both gave their boy the same name, James Alan (or James Allan in Springer’s case).
Both Jims were heavy smokers, drove the same car (a Chevrolet) and had similar jobs in security (Jim Lewis was a security guard, while Jim Springer had been a deputy sheriff). They even took vacations at the same Florida beach. Neither man knew any of these impossible facts about their brother, however, until Lewis, aged 37, decided to try and get into contact with his twin. In 1977, he succeeded in finding contact details through an Ohio courthouse; the pair spoke on the phone and eventually agreed to meet.
IDENTICAL Twins?
On February 9, 1979, the Jim Twins were finally reunited. When their fascinating case came to light, scientists saw how very valuable they could be to the study of reunited twins. They took part in a study conducted by Dr. Thomas Bouchard of the University of Minnesota, who found that their medical histories and brain-wave tests were almost identical. So too were their results in a personality test.
As First To Know reports, the case of the brothers (and others like them) went on to influence theories of nature versus nurture, and how science thinks about the effects of hereditary over environmental factors. Some have even considered the Jim Twins’ case as possible proof of telepathic connections between twins. Jim Springer did state that he “always felt an emptiness,” after all. Was it his brother he was subconsciously feeling?
By Chris Littlechild, contributor for Ripleys.com
mama mia
here we go again
My My
This story is just completely insane I mean both were adopted as babies and both were named James. Both married and divorced women named Linda. both remarried women named Betty. Both had childhood dogs named Toy and the identical lifestyles don’t stop there.
Oh, wow, thank you. I never realised they were both called James. I finally understand how crazy this is thanks to YOUR comment 🙂
i like cake
Hey thanks for reliably sourcing this article by providing links to an actual, scientific case study done on these twins! I certainly won’t have any trouble finding a proper academic paper on these two under the mountain of news sites that wrote sensational articles for clicks and don’t feel the need to provide a reliable source for the millions of readers who visit their site daily…
I wonder if they got the same groceries and shopped at the same stores?