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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
World
Hannah Mackenzie Wood

Identical twins separated at birth reunite and have matching lives - including same name

Identical twin brothers who were separated at birth were reunited to find they had lived eerily similar lives.

Both named Jim, the two men lived apart for 39 years after their birth in 1940 and were given the same name by their adoptive parents.

But Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, known as the 'Jim twins' came to discover they had more than just their names in common.

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According to MamaMia.com, the extraordinary similarities didn't end there. Growing up just 40 miles from each other in Ohio, both Jims had a brother named Larry and a dog called Toy. They shared the same interests in school - mathematics and woodwork - and both hated spelling.

Each brother also went on to marry a woman named Linda, only to divorce several years later. But even more astoundingly, their respective second wives also had the same name, Betty, with both men naming their sons James Allan, the Daily Record reports.

The two Jims were also chain smokers, suffered from migraines and owned Chevlorets. And while they didn't have the exact same job, they were still very similar. Jim Lewis worked as a security guard and Jim Springer was a deputy sheriff.

Jim Lewis was aware that he had a twin brother and that they had been separated at birth, however Jim Springer’s mother had told him his twin had passed away as a baby.

The pair lived their parallel lives without ever meeting until 1979, when Jim Lewis discovered the contact details of his identical twin and reached out. When they finally met for the first time, it didn’t take long for them to realise the eerie similarities in their life stories.

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Jim Springer said he had “always felt an emptiness,” until he reunited with his identical twin. Their story became a source of fascination for scientists and the brothers took part in a various studies that examined ‘nature versus nurture’.

In one study, conducted by Dr. Thomas Bouchard of University of Minnesota, the two Jims completed tests on personality, medical history and brain-waves. Their results left Dr. Bouchard “flabbergasted”, as both scored remarkably the same in all three areas.

The identical twins even came up with the exact same thing when asked to draw a picture. The results helped scientists realise the significance of genetics in the make-up of a person - a more prominent role than they had ever initially considered.

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