Pat Davis opened up her mail in her McDonough home a little over a month ago and got a huge surprise.

  In a letter from his home in the United Kingdom, Lord Bryan Wells told Davis that he believed they were second cousins. A brief comparison of family history confirmed this, and then Lord Wells capped it off by saying that he and his wife would be visiting the United States in a few weeks and perhaps they should get together.

  “This has all been so unbelievable,” said Davis of the turn of events that resulted in Lord Wells and his wife Patti sitting in her home Monday afternoon while they spoke to the Times.

  Davis was born in England in 1945 and her mother, a war bride, brought her to New York the following year aboard the Queen Mary. She moved south in 1964 to Kentucky and lived all over the United States while working for the government, moving to McDonough 24 years ago.

  Both she and her newfound cousin had submitted samples to Ancestry DNA. She was fairly certain that she had relatives across the Atlantic, and when she got word back from Ancestry she contacted one person who was likely to be a close relative, but that person was not interested in pursuing the idea so she didn’t go beyond the initial contact.

  She then received an open letter from Lord Wells suggesting their kinship. The two of them learned that his grandfather, Agamemnon, and her grandmother, Mary, were brother and sister. There were other discussions about common relatives, and Lord Wells even provided Davis with some photographs that sealed the deal.

  “Until six weeks ago neither of us knew the other existed,” he said Monday.

  The Wellses live in the town of Scunthorpe, about 180 miles from London in the county of Lincolnshire, which is the oldest county in England. That is also the town where Davis was born and where she knew her aunt had lived.

  Lord Wells has been a structural engineering for nearly all of his professional life. His title comes from the fact that he owns land on a certain estate in a certain district, which gives him the right under ancient English law to hold the title of Lord Bryan Wells of Hogan Manor. He was quick to point out that it is an honorific title only and he should not be confused with any member of the House of Lords, one of the branches of Parliament.

  “It certainly opens doors,” he said when asked about the practical use of the title. He uses it in much the same way a doctor might put Dr. in front of his or her name in the United States – not on official government documents like passports or driver’s licenses, but on most everything else. He has no idea how many people in the UK have such a title, although it could be a few thousand.

  In the course of their research Davis and Lord Wells learned that Robert Hutchinson, a prominent British writer and historian, is another second cousin.

  After their initial correspondence, Lord Wells said that he and his wife would be coming to the United States soon for a visit and wondered if they could stop by and see Davis. That news was thrilling to her.

  The couple left southwest Florida Sunday and drove over parts of two days to reach Henry County, taking a 30-minute scenic detour from I-75 to Hampton thanks to incorrect directions from a road crew. They finally located a police officer and were guided to the right place.

  “But that’s life, isn’t it?” Lord Wells said with a chuckle in his gentlemanly British accent.

  The main reason the Wellses initially planned their three-week trip to this side of the Atlantic was to visit a lady who has been a pen pal of Patti Wells since 1948. The extra stop to see their cousin in McDonough was icing on the cake.

  Davis planned to gather her children, grandchildren and great-grandchild for supper with their newfound relatives before they leave town – the climax to an amazing week.   As Davis herself put it: “This has all been so unbelievable.”