Happy Siblings Day!

Do you always remember your siblings’ birthdays? Come on, tell the truth. Well, you would if they all shared the same birthday and it was also your birthday!

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a Virginia couple are the only known parents who have given birth to five children (no multiple births) on the same day of the year. Catherine was born in 1952, Carol in 1953, Charles in 1956, Claudia in 1961, and Cecilia in 1966 – all on February 20. (The Ralph and Carolyn Cummins family of Clintwood also seems to have an affinity for the letter “C”.) If they also all share the same cake – that’s a lot of candles! The odds of five single siblings sharing a calendar birthday are one in 17,797,577,730 – more than twice the world’s population.

The odds of four siblings being born on the same day are still tough to beat, but go down to one in 133,225. The Scrugham family in the United Kingdom beat the odds with four children born on January 12, although two of the siblings are twins.

None of the Scugham’s babies were due on January 12. The oldest child, Sam, was two weeks late, the twins were one month early and delivered by an emergency c-section, and the youngest was three days late. Or was he?

And, because we’re on the subject of strange sibling birthdays, here’s another odd set of circumstances. Amy and Katie Eliot are twins living in Waterford, Ireland, and although they share most things, such as nearly identical DNA, they don’t share a birthday. They were born 87 days apart.
Amy was born on June 1, 2012. She was four months premature, and weighed just over one pound. The odds of a baby surviving when it’s born at 23 weeks are very low. When the baby is also a twin, the odds drop even lower. Amy spent her first few months in an isolette clinging to life and waiting for the birth of her sister. Eight-seven days later on Aug. 27, during her mother’s 36th week of pregnancy, doctors induced the birth of Katie.

It wasn’t the first time this had occurred. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Katie and Amy broke the record held by Peggy Lynn of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Lynn gave birth to her daughter Hanna and son Eric 84 days apart. The Lynn twins, however, retain the distinction of being born in different years. Hanna was born November 11, 1995, and Eric was born on February 2, 1996.

Today, April 10, is Siblings Day, and even if you don’t share the same birthday, all siblings share something special. Don’t forget to wish yours a happy day.