From Friends to Cousins to Roommates

Second-year students Nicholas Johnson and Patrick Lyons first found each other on the Loyola Class of 2027 Instagram page the summer before starting their first-year at Loyola. When they met after moving onto campus, they quickly became good friends. 

“‘This guy looks cool, he seems similar to me,’” Johnson said he thought at the time. “I didn’t know how similar he would end up being.”

Both chose Loyola because of familial connections to the school and Chicago, as well as interest in its programs offered. Lyons is a third-generation Loyola student from Wisconsin and Johnson has family from Chicago and is from Aurora, Illinois.

Last year, after friends repeatedly told them they looked alike and had a similar demeanor, Lyons and Johnson said they decided to investigate.

Following a serious sit down discussion going through their lineage, the pair discovered that while not related genetically, they were cousins by marriage. Lyon’s father’s brother-in-law married into Johnson’s family, according to Lyons.

“We were just talking about it and talking about our family heritage, telling stories and everything kinda lined up really similarly with mine,” Johnson said. “‘I was like ‘Maybe I’m really unoriginal as a person’ and then I found out I wasn’t unoriginal.”

They also have similar family histories. Each of their families’ ancestors came from Italy, with Lyons’s family coming from Sicily and Johnson’s from northern Italy, both ending up in Cicero, Illinois.

“When we did the research, our family members are buried in the same cemetery in Cicero, Illinois,” Johnson said. 

Since making the discovery, they’ve visited each other’s families. Patrick met Nicholas’s family in Michigan this past summer where Lyons got to hear about some of his family members.

“It was weird because we would talk about my Uncle Andy who’s married into my family,” Lyons said. “It was just interesting hearing stories about family members that I’d decently met, but not know as much as his side of the family did. So, it was nice to bring it full circle and realize what the family tree really is like.”

Lyons informed his uncle of his family connection at school who recognized names of Johnson’s family, according to Lyons. Now second-years, they are roommates living in Fairfield Hall together.

“We both know each other’s families to an amount that most people don’t know their roommates’ folks as much,” Johnson said. “We’re decently close family wise.” 

The two also confirmed through their family members that a few of their distant relatives married each other, according to Johnson.

The two have similar hobbies and are involved in the same activities, like the Rambler Brotherhood Project. Lyons said, they even spend their downtime together watching the same TV, including football and Formula One racing. They have similar goals and motivations, according to Johnson.

“We’re very similar in the way we approach life in general,” Johnson said. “It’s no surprise to me that we come from a similar background ‘cause the way we are is similar.”

The pair said they feel lucky to have found each other.

“The crazy part with us is just the fact that we ended up, him from Wisconsin and myself from Aurora, meeting each other in the same place and clicking how we did,” Johnson said. 

Lyons and Johnson said they plan to be roommates for the rest of college.

“We’re planning on getting an apartment next year eventually and you know see if we’ll find another cousin,” Johnson said. “Any Italians hit us up and we’ll figure it all out.”

The pair said they want to continue being roommates and plan to be friends for life.

“As we both advance in our careers, know that we got someone else to rely on,” Johnson said.
A similar situation occurred last fall as cousins discovered each other after both living in Francis Hall, the Phoenix previously reported.