Invisible pull towards ancestral roots?

Yes, LiltingLyrics, I think you are onto something. My father's family emigrated from Chichester to Australia in 1839. They had a thriving coach building business in Chichester. Settled in Adelaide. My English mum emigrated to Australia in 1951 and met my dad, descended from the Chichester family. I was brought up in australia until I moved to England 40 years ago. In England I have always lived where my husband chose. (Mostly Surrey). Dh's parents retired to Chichester about 20 years ago and I always hoped dh might one day choose to retire there too, although he always dismissed the idea. UNTIL 2 years ago when we started thinking about retirement. Guess where we now live???? Chichester! Very very close to where my father's family lived up until 1839. Love it here .... and there is a satisfying feeling of completing a circle.

I suspect it is entirely coincidental, but after a life of multiple moves, I have come to rest in a village only half an hour from where my ancestors lived for generations -starting from 1640.
I had no idea until recently. Distant relatives still live there.

We now live where my husbands ancestors lived around 200 years ago, no idea until we did our family tree.

Looking at my results on Ancestry DNA. I am back in the sort of area most of my ancestors began.
Leicestershire on my mums side. Cheshire and the Welsh borders on my fathers side for most of the 1800s' and the mid 1950s. My father's side had some Scottish and Irish blood .
We are very much from theBritish Midlands.
Via Northhamptonshire and Bristol for many years and ending up back in Cheshire. We have not strayed far.

I have felt strangely drawn to three buildings in London where my great-grandmother worked, and in one of which my grandmother was born. Mind you, they are all pubs.

grumpa ?

Genealogy can throw up all sorts of surprises, some very unwelcome and with DNA testing these days even more so.
Dads ancestors were farmers quite closeby, most of his male forebear's emigrated to the colonies in the early 1900s. Over the years we have had quite a few visits from far flung places.
Mums family goes way back to 1066 a very well known name, you would recognise it, when I knew granny she was married to the publican of a spit and sawdust pub near Liverpool. Her first husband was a school teacher who died early in the 1930s leaving her with 6 children that must have been tough.
Researching her family is endlessly revealing lots of important characters also rouges. A few months ago I came across the name in connection with Barbados, researched that and in the early 1700s they were plantation owners, with slaves, soldiers, ship owners and probably pirates as well, all over the Caribbean. I don't intend to do DNA research on that lot.
So be fully prepared to dig up a lot of skeletons, the chef Ainsley Harricott was on TV and his well to do granny turned out to be a brothel owner.

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Reported

Until the mid 1800s my ancestors were all living in rural areas and mostly working on the land. I love those places and definitely feel comfortable and happy when I'm there. But then (with the Industrial Revolution) they were mostly forced to move into the industrialised city areas which are not so nice to visit today. So I don't feel the same there! But then you could say those areas are not where their roots lie, so maybe that is the reason.

Several odd coincidences have happened to me.
I was an art student in Norwich and loved to sketch in the surrounding villages. 30 years later, studying my family tree, I traced my 3 x g parents to one of those villages. I had no idea at all until seeing it on the 1851 cesus as a birthplace.
Now I find I am living a few miles from where another ancestor had emigrated from in 1830.