Genealogy Chat

I got bitten by the genealogy bug only about 6 weeks ago but as well as trying to gather as much info as I can on all branches of my family (very successful to date), I've been trying to gather together photos of people, churches where they were baptised/married/buried etc.etc. I've also been a keen ebayer for a while but hadn't looked at the ebay site since October, so imagine my surprise when I logged on the other day, casually typed in my home village name and came up with a postcard of the High Street where some of my family lived, dated 1910, and where I'd been taking pictures myself only a couple of weeks ago! I don't know why but I felt the urge to contact the seller to see who the original sender and recipient were. Back came the info "sent by Minnie - probably one of the Bird family". Well, gobsmacked wasn't even the word, as that was my maternal grandmother at the age of 12/13!! She had sent it to her aunt for her birthday, saying "You can see our house on this card". It became a must-have of course, as it's the nearest to a family heirloom I'm going to get, so I was willing to pay what it took - very unlike me who is renowned for hanging on to my cash at all costs! The good news is that I was the highest bidder (without being totally bankrupt) and I had it posted out to my mother who is seriously ill with cancer so she could see it first. She was thrilled to bits and says she'd have recognised her mother's writing straight away. To cap it all, the seller's husband is a relative (his grandmother was the original recipient) & one of those bidding against me turns out to be another relative, although she had no idea about who'd written the card. She just wanted it for the picture as her bit of the family also lived on that street. Obviously, they're happy to swap info with me, so my tree gets bigger by the day! A great start to 2005, I have to say but what would the odds be of this happening as it did? Maybe I should start to believe in Fate? Btw, if there are any more Beans & Birds from Normanby, Eston or Darlington out there that I've not contacted yet, please get in touch. A happy, healthy & successful year to everyone! Jack

If that is not fate I do not know what is. What a brilliant result. Good luck with the rest of your searching. Shirley

That's a great story, thanks for that. I've done a bit of ebaying in my time, mainly selling unwanted bits and pieces, never thought to look for this sort of thing, quite a good tip, and a good way to add more information to your family history even without the remote possibility that it would turn out to be such a personal item. Think you should sell that story to a magazine!

Oh Jacqueline, that reallly has sent a shiver down my spine. Onein a million chance of that ever happening again! Good luck in your research Christine

What a fantastic piece of luck!

Thats brilliant. Things like that do seem to happen to me too! I think I have mentioned on here that having traced my family through the East End of London it turned out GGFx2 had actually gone to Stepney from just down the road where I live in Norfolk and have done for 25 years. I mean this man would have walked by my door 200 years ago to get into town. Since then I have found so many of my ancestors around my little area, headstones, houses where they lived. As you say, seems to be fate.