The Guinness Book of World Records, now known as Guinness World Records, features more than 40,000 records, ranging from topics in sports to human interest to celebrities and food and drink. 

Students in the sophomore class at New Trier High School found out on May 18 of last year that they’re the proud record holders of two records: Most Twins and Most Multiples in a Single Academic Year at One School. The sophomore class features 44 sets of twins and one set of triplets, accounting for 91 of the roughly 1,000 kids in the class. That number would make the twin birth rate of about one in every 10, compared to one in every 30, which is the national average.

But how did the class find out about the record two years ago?

Boredom.

“It was more of pure boredom than anything else,” Ryan Novosel said. “I was up late at night, flipping through the book, bored out of my mind and stumbled across the twins record, which was 16 at the time. I could name eight or nine sets right off the top of my head that we knew from middle school and then I went downstairs and grabbed the directory and was able to find that we had 24 sets in our class.” 

Ryan, and his twin, Luke, as well as their mom Nancy, applied for the record with Guinness World Records and found out that the 24 sets of twins at Highcrest Middle School broke the record of 16 set at three high schools in Iowa and Connecticut.

Twenty-three of the 24 sets of twins at Highcrest entered New Trier as freshmen last year.

“We called the administration saying ‘hey these kids are entering, there’s got to be some more,’” Nancy Fendley Novosel said.

Two families have two sets of twins, including the Ramsey family of Wilmette.

“We get a lot of reaction when we tell people because they’re very astounded to how odd that is,” Julia Ramsey said. “Pretty much every time we say ‘Oh I’m a twin and my older sisters are twins,’ they always freak out and ask how it’s possible. With our mom, she had IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) so it’s not that uncommon or weird for us.”

“Our older sisters, one of them has brown hair/brown eyes and the other blonde hair/blue eyes, so people will always tell us you look more like your older sister than your twin,” Grace Ramsey said. “You’re more of a mini-version of your sister.”

It took the people at Guinness World Records 17 months to get back to the Novosels and verify the record, a longer period of time than they had originally expected.

“The reality is that the skill ones, nobody can beat but we saw the twin record,” Luke Novosel said. “It was pure excitement and we thought we could get it quickly, but Guinness takes a while.

“It’s every kids dream to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.”

While the majority of the multiples are twins, the class does feature a set of triplets, the Hinrichs. 

“We get a lot of people saying ‘oh my god, you’re triplets, that’s so cool’ and we’re used to people being surprised because we don’t look alike,” Caroline Hinrich said.

“I think people now are used to it and for me personally, I don’t see it as triplets, I see it as a sister,” Anna Hinrich said. “I don’t see it very differently.

Being a triplet can be very different than just having twins because one person always seems to be left out.

“That’s the negative thing,” Anna Hinrich said. “If you’re a twin, it’s one against one, but if you’re a triplet, you’re two against one and there’s always someone that gets picked on.”

With the class only having three sets of identical twins, the Ramseys say that it can be difficult convincing people that they’re twins.

“It’s pretty difficult to mix us up because we look so different because we are fraternal and have different color eyes, different color hair,” Julia Ramsey said. “But a lot of times we tell people we’re twins, they won’t believe us, they’ll ask us to prove it, ask our mom or something like that.”

With the birth rates as they are though, it seems like the records at New Trier might be ones that will be held for a long time.

– Published Feb. 8, 2018