Dying close to B-day of close family members

JoChervil

I've written in another thread:

"I noticed that people always die no more than 2 weeks apart from significant family members. My parents died 1 and 2 days from my DOB.

Prince Philip died on April 9th, while Queen'a DOB is 21st of April. Today is Prince Charles' birthday. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear bad news soon."

I also have many examples from my family and their in-laws. But maybe it's just my family is so weird.

Have you noticed such correlation?

JoChervil

Maybe I should have posted it in another forum?

touts

Maybe you shouldn't stress when you haven't got 50 replies and 200 likes after 7 minutes.

Gregor Samsa

Some people are just very inconsiderate. You’d think they’d have the decency to die at some godforsaken end of the year where all that’s going on is mowing the lawn or cleaning the gutters. But no: they want the very breath you use for blowing out your birthday candles to be used for eulogising them.

Either that, or a lot of people celebrate their birthday by killing a loved one.

EmmetSpiceland

Just proves the old saying that you’re never more than 2 weeks away from someone’s birthday.

Jequ0n

An impressive correlation between the royal family and yourself OP. Impressive. You must be on to something.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118165914#Comment_118165914

I simply wanted serious answers, not jokes

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118165962#Comment_118165962

Maybe you can find such correlation too in your family then?

JoChervil

And I remember two girls in my workplace. Their mother-in-law died near their birthdays. I only noticed it because they mentioned funerals and then they were blowing candles soon.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118165964#Comment_118165964

Sorry. Here’s my serious answer:

I can confirm that I have not noticed such a correlation. I don’t recall anyone I knew personally dying within two weeks of my birthday.

Which is good news for anyone else I know, because if they make it to 14 days before my birthday they’re 100% guaranteed to survive the following 28 days, no matter what.

Allinall

My grandfather died of a Tuesday.

They still haven’t found a cure.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118165975#Comment_118165975

No I can’t, but I also don’t have any contact with most of them and wouldn’t know when they die, so they pick whatever day they want.

Its an interesting idea though.

corner of hells

Didn't yer man Jesus die just before Easter Sunday , sure he missed out on all those Easter eggs.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118166006#Comment_118166006

Eh, he came back for the Easter eggs. All he missed was a half day of the pubs being closed. And the most boring Saturday of the year.

893bet

I think the OP is gonna murder the queen and this thread is part of an elaborate back story.

JoChervil

I've opened a can of worms then....😮

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118166025#Comment_118166025

Better than a casket.

dxhound2005

Research and statistics show that there may or may not be such an effect. As people doing these jobs will always say, more research needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_effect

On a related issue, research shows that there needs to be only 23 people gathered randomly to have a 50% chance of two sharing a birthday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

Riddle101

Christmas is the same tbh. You always hear the tragic deaths that end up spoiling Christmas. I had an aunt who died just before Christmas many years ago now, she was a single mother with three children so it was especially tough for my cousins at the time.

KaneToad

This theory is up there with the "bad luck always happens in threes" nonsense.

It's the stuff of fortune telling/faith healing shysters....

"I'm getting the letter M, there is someone special in your life with this as the first letter of their name"

"I see someone in your family/friends has had some setbacks with cancer..."

secman

With billions of people on the planet and only 365 days you can be born on or die on. hardly surprising ?

freshpopcorn

I think when people die just before your Birthday there just trying to get out of giving you a gift!

anewme

its always going to be close to someone’s birthday as others have said.

on another note, this thread reminds me of After Hours of old, A good laugh.

corner of hells

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118166425#Comment_118166425

Ahem , 29th of February?

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118166425#Comment_118166425

Well, I don't have THAT big family...

Skyrimaddict

My dad died 2 days before my Birthday, and 2 days after my wedding.

It was a fun time !

northknife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118166006#Comment_118166006

Do you not remember that Peter had some of those mini eggs?

Was throwing them to Jesus but he kept dropping them for some reason

magicbastarder

simple maths - you've a one in 13 chance of dying within two weeks of the birthday of a specific family member.

someone with three kids and two siblings has probably eight or more 'significant' family members (spouse, kids, siblings, parents). there'd be probably a greater than 50% chance if you pick any day of the year at random, that it would fall within a fortnight of one of their birthdays.

seamus

This is one of those statistical phenomena where you have an innate feeling that something should be very improbable, but the actual likelihood is much bigger.

The most famous one is the birthday problem. TL;DR: In a room of 23 people selected at random, you would expect that the probability of any two sharing a birthday should be 23/365, or about 6%. It's not though, it's 50%. It's not magic, it's just beyond the brain's typical mathematical intuition.

The same applies here. If someone has ten close family members, then the probability of them dying on someone else's birthday are pretty high: ~ 10%.

Thus them dying near someone's birthday (i.e. within two weeks) is actually more likely than it is not.

dxhound2005

The probability of two people posting the Birthday Problem link within 12 posts is also very high.😀

^^

That's some complicated maths stuff... Pick 2 people at random out of that 23 (and not just allow for 'any 2' out of the whole 23), and it's most likely that you'd have to hit about 16/17 different groups using that same approach, before the 50% probability stuff kicks in...