Paranormal wanderings

I mentioned something about "family memories" in my previous blog.
I wonder if there are very many people who have this type of experience, or can relate to it?
My older sister is into Geneology, and has found that with a couple of permutations, our family name is pretty darn old, and there are some people that we're descended from who molded the world at one time.

I got a book once about them, and as I was reading the different biographies and stories, I came on one of a man who was a French Duke, 58 years old, who's territory had been invaded. This was down in southern France, near Marseilles around 1100 ad. This man signed his title, home and land over to his oldest son and, denied the son the right to go out and defend their property. He told his son that he was old and of no further use to their cause if he were to live on and his son die in battle, so, since he was getting older and having trouble walking, and even riding, he told his boy that he coud consider it his last wish that the son stay home, defend the castle if necessary, and allow him one last chance to go into battle, to die with honor.

The old man, not being able to keep himself steady in the saddle anymore, had ordered himself tied to it. He said it didn't matter, that he wouldn't live to see the end of the day anyway. So he led his men out in one "roll of the dice" so to speak, in a desperate bid to win the day against overwhelming odds. Predictably, he did die that day, but of a heart attack apparently, and after the battle had been won handily by his army.

The funny thing was, as I was reading this, I could see it unfolding in my mind's eye. It was like I was remembering the event as well as reading about it, and I knew what was going to happen next, before I read about it. I had never had this happen to me before, but then I had never intentionally read anything directly biographical about any of my ancestors either, at that time. Other than the bare facts you find in high-school history books.

This interested me, so I decided to try an experiment. I would think about a family line, concentrate on a character somewhere in that line, then write down everything that came to mind about him. About his times, philosophies, children, events that seemed to me to have happened to him, then go back and study everything I could about him, his home and times.
Amazingly enough, I could zero in on these people. So, I tried it with historical people at random, with nowhere near the luck. Actually, that was a dismal failure.

Has anyone else out there found this ability(?) within themselves? Has anyone ever even heard of this? Comments are welcome. Stories would be welcome too, even if they tend more toward fantasy than historical. If you write a story related to this, please come back to my comments and link it.