The Peculiar Truth about the Jim Twins

• February 9, 1979: Jim Springer and Jim Lewis met for the first time. Or more accurately, for the first time since they were infants. They had been separated and put up for adoption when they were four weeks old.

• Springer and Lewis were identical twins. Meeting one another was like staring into a mirror. All they could do was laugh.

• They looked alike. They walked alike. They smoked alike. Yet prior to meeting at age 39, they had no memories of one another.

• The two middle-aged men had led lives that were uncannily similar in ways that defy mere coincidences.

• August 19, 1939: Their mother gave birth to the twins in Piqua, Ohio, a small town 30 miles north of Dayton. She was a 35-year-old immigrant who immediately put the boys up for adoption.

• The babies were monozygotic twins, meaning they were from the same egg, not dizygotic, formed from two separate eggs. By definition, they shared identical DNA.

• Ernest and Sarah Springer of Piqua adopted one of the babies and named him James. They were told the other twin had died in birth, otherwise they would have taken both.

• Jess and Lucille Lewis adopted the other boy two weeks later. Purely by coincidence, they also named their new son James.

• The Lewis family lived in Lima, Ohio, less than an hour’s drive north of Piqua. The children were raised separately with no knowledge of one another despite living just 45 miles apart.

• They both went by the name Jim and had an adopted brother whose name was Larry.

• Both had a dog they called Toy.

• In school, neither of them cared for spelling but both excelled at math.

• As teenagers, both developed life-long severe headaches similar to yet different from migraines. Their similarities grew wilder with age.

• Both Jims married twice. Each of their first wives was named Linda. They both divorced their respective Lindas. Both then married women named Betty.

• One of the Jims named his firstborn son James Alan. The other named his firstborn son James Allan.

• Springer was a part-time deputy sheriff. Lewis was a security guard.

• Before meeting, they each took separate vacations at the exact same beach near St. Petersburg, FL, and they drove to and from those trips in the same make and model of Chevrolet.

• Both men commonly bit their fingernails down to the nubs, and both were chain-smokers who preferred Salem cigarettes.

• The only noticeable difference was that Lewis combed his hair from a part on the left while Springer had bangs.

• After spending time together, the twins began finishing each other’s sentences.

• The Jim Twins appeared on TV talk shows, and audiences were stunned at the similarities.

• They agreed to be studied by doctors at the University of Minnesota. Every test they received - brain wave activity, personality tests, blood pressure readings - were identical.

• The university study showed how DNA can shape our lives. Nature doesn’t always prevail over nurture, but in the case of the Jim Twins it’s hard to refute.

• Jim Springer died at age 80, but as of this writing Jim Lewis is still alive.