Okay, this is going to be a big post and I'm going to try to write the whole thing without any of my signature expletives.

This actually happened to my uncle today and I'm going to try to retell it as best as I can remember. I'm going to put in as many details as I possibly can so you can fully understand how absolutely insane this is.

My uncle is the very definition of a workaholic. For as long as I have been alive (almost 23 years now) all I have known my uncle to be is a businessman, straight to the point, hard working absolute up front business at all times. For the majority of my life he has owned his own company (that shall remain nameless here as he's a bit fussy about his own privacy) and it's located on a street somewhere in Glasgow. He used to live round the corner from that street and everyone in my family knows of it.

For as long as he's had his company he's worked 7 days a week, every single day of the year except Christmas and boxing day. Absolutely solid. No Holidays. Ever. I hate to keep repeating myself but I must stress that the man is 100% business. He's always extremely busy and has little time for messing about when he's at work. For someone that's such a genuinely awesome guy this whole businessman persona might make it seem that he's cold and unforgiving, but I can assure you that as an uncle (and a friend) he's a great guy. It's just when he's at work he's no frills, straight to the point, cold and very powerful in his presence.

Now you might understand that the first part of this story is extremely out of character for my hard working, cold and direct businessman uncle.

He's at work with a pile of stuff to do as per usual. The phone rings. He checks his security camera and notices that his two sales staff are currently engaged in calls. He looks at the caller's phone number and notices that it's not a local number (not a Glasgow number) and as such it's probably someone calling about a survey or some other form of irrelevant time-wasting that he'd usually open with a "Sorry, not interested" and hang up. He decides the best thing to do is leave it ringing and let the company's phone system feed the call through to his staff.
As the phone keeps ringing he suddenly realizes that it might be an English business contact from whom he is expecting an important call today, again this is something he could easily have fed through to his staff to handle, but as they are busy he decides that it'd be better to just check to see if it is his contact as not to keep the beautiful process of business waiting.

"Hello, <company name> how can I help you?"

- "Hi, I'm standing outside your premises on google maps street view and I'm wondering if I can ask you a few questions?"

Now this is the bit of the story I really want to put emphasis on how unusual my uncle's behaviour is. Usually this would be swiftly dealt with "Sorry mate I don't have the time, busy busy" or words to that effect, possibly a little more blunt and straight to the point.

"Alright, what can I help you with?"

- "Hi, I'm trying to find an address on your street, but I'm not sure what direction to go in. I want number 1545, what number are you?"

At this point in the story telling my uncle told me that it's easy to find his street number online so he was starting to think this was a prank call, however he claimed to be intrigued by how this would pan out.

"Sure, I'm number 1409"

- "ahhhh, I see. So for 1545 I'd need to head up the bridge?"

"Yes, I think that might be the case, although to be honest with you mate 1545 is really far off 1409 isn't it? I mean that sounds like it must be miles down this road, and this road actually ends just after the bridge at a fork."

- "Ahh I see, I had anticipated that, you see I'm actually looking at a map of the area dated 1905"

"Oh? Sounds like it might be a little bit out of date then"

- "Haha, yes, though it has the information that I need on it. I'm actually trying to trace some family here. I'm from Kent... (really far south in England for all you international readers(Glasgow is in the middle of Scotland(Scotland is above England)))) ...I'm from Kent and I'm trying to find the home of my aunt.

"Oh right, well although this particular street ends just past the bridge, the road actually continues on under a new name, I think it was changed in the 70's."

- "Ahhh, I see that's great. Well I'm actually looking for two addresses. 1545 and 1590. 1545 is the house of my Aunt and 1590 is the house that my Grandfather was born. I just got his birth certificate today. He was born in 1901 and that's why the map is so old".

"Ahhh I see, well those addresses might be further up the road then, but I have to tell you mate that I'm pretty sure all the houses that far up the road got flattened a few years ago for a motorway. Also 1901, that's funny I have a painting of the Glasgow City chambers on my wall dated 1901"

- "Oh, really? That's too bad, I'll have a look anyway. It shouldn't be too hard to find my aunt at least - she has quite an unusual name, well maybe it isn't so unusual up in Scotland. Urquhart?"

Now is where this whole thing starts to get weird.

"Ah right, it's probably more common in Scotland, but the only Urquhart I've ever heard of was that my mother or father mentioned to me years ago I had an Aunt who was called Urquhart..."

Then the painting of city chambers on my uncle's wall brought back a memory of MY grandmother (his mother) being in his office one day and noticing the date on the picture.
This is what she said: "Oh, this is from 1901? That's when your Grandfather Valentine Jackson was born."

So the story continues with my uncle feeling very confused.

"... I had an aunt who was called Urquhart... and MY grandfather was born in 1901 too, hang on this is a prank call? I've got better things to do mate-"

- "No no no, It's not a prank call, please don't hang up, look I just got my Grandfather's birth certificate today and I'm just trying to further some research on my family."

"Okay then, what was your Grandfather's name?"

- "Valentine Jackson"

... My reaction to this story was WHAT THE F... you're kidding right?

"You're telling me that your grandfather's name was Valentine Jackson? This has got to be a joke, You're from kent right? What's your father's name?"

- "George Jackson"

...my grandfather had 3 siblings. 2 brothers - Tom and George, and one sister - Marjory.

"Did your father have any brothers?"

- "Yes, Tom Jackson-"

"OKAY hang on... did he have any sisters?"

At this point my uncle thought he'd throw in a question that not many people know the answer to. Only close family (even I didn't know that my grandfather had a sister) know about Marjory as whenever my grandfather is mentioned it's always talking about the three brothers Tom, George and Jimmy.

- "Yes, Marjory"

"He had one more brother didn't he?"

- "Yes, I was about to say that before you asked about the sister, his name was James, how are you getting this information?"

"James Jackson is my father."

....

...

..

.

So yeah, this bloke is called George Jackson and he's my Uncle's cousin.

MY GREAT GRANDFATHER'S NAME WAS VALENTINE JACKSON! How freakin' awesome is that for a name? I always though the "Jackson" name was a bit... meh, but not anymore, not when paired with that first name. Valentine Jackson. It's amazing!

Anyways, holy crap how incredible is that? What are the odds of that bloke RANDOMLY phoning my uncle's company to get answered by my uncle?

And there is a lot of tiny weird detailed too. the 1901 painting triggering his memory about his grandfather's birthday AND the fact that the company address and the address of the house that Valentine was born in are similar. The last two digits are reversed (I changed the actual numbers for this story so as to retain the privacy of my uncle).

But yeah, how CRAZY is that?

I'm totally right now.

Two awesome things have come of this though, the first is that my uncle just got in touch with his cousin and his cousin is sending him all the family tree research he's done so far (which I am really interested in - I always wanted to trace my roots but I was a bit hesitant at the amount of work involved), AND more importantly my great grandfather was called VALENTINE JACKSON!

BEST

NAME

EVER

Dear future firstborn son,

Enjoy your new name.

Craig.

And I'm done now.

Going to go collapse.