Lost But Found Again

As researchers we encounter those wonderful stories of uniting our clients with their family history through the research that we do. That is a wonderful gift, job or tool however you word it, we take pride in what we do and don’t take it lightly. Recently I had to opportunity to reunite someone’s family history with the family. Okay I can see you tilting your head from side to side trying to figure out what on earth I’m talking about.

Some of you are aware as to how I started in genealogy; you might have seen me present or read one of my blog postings about the wonderful things that can be found on the internet to help in your search. One of those sites I’ve mentioned was eBay and searching for family letters to research, blog about or aid in a client’s research.  Well recently while reviewing a purchase made a few years back I realized that the dates on some letters were post stamped in the late 1990’s. As a genealogist I research “for the living” I don’t research the living. I find it exciting to discover a family’s history along with that family member, client.  After noticing the dates I ventured out to research “the living” and see if I could reunite the family with this wonderful collection that I had purchased so many years ago.  What a wonderful feeling it was to speak with a member of the family and discover these were things many family members had never seen.  I had mixed feeling during the end of our phone conversation both of joy and great sadness.  It turned out this family collection had been stolen; yes that was where my sadness entered.  But I quickly found joy in the fact that many years ago I purchased the “lot” of letters, photos and documents and with multiple moves I packed them away in a box for safe keeping. Only to then pull them out a couple weeks ago, locate the family and reunite them with pieces of their family history that they thought were gone forever.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again I “LOVE” doing this.