Whether you have an attic filled with junk or a dusty box of bits you keep tucked away, you don’t expect to stumble upon a series of old photos of people you’ve never met when having a clear out.
But that’s exactly what happened to Kate Kelley – and it sparked an extraordinary hobby.
The special education teacher from Massachusetts – who has been dubbed the ‘Photo Angel’ by her 3,000 Facebook fans – has made an impact around the world with her passion for reuniting old photographs and documents with living relatives.
It all began after she uncovered photos of strangers mixed up with her grandparents’ old family pictures which had names and details written on the back, making Kelley think “wouldn’t it be awesome to get these pictures in the mail?”.
Ms Kelley explained: “I have been interested in genealogy for a long time so I knew how sites such as Ancestry.com and FindAGrave.com worked. I would go on the sites, using the details from the photos and try to find connections.”
She now frequents antique stores and flea markets in order to purchase more photographs and reunite them with descendants.
The Photo Angel has helped over 100 people reunite with long-lost relatives, and among them was a family with Oxfordshire links.
After receiving an anonymous package containing two mortgage transfer documents from Oxfordshire dating back to 1887, Ms Kelley was able to once again work her magic.
Inside it was a note that simply read: “I hope you can find the descendant.”
To this day, Ms Kelley doesn’t know who sent her this anonymous package but said she wanted to “thank the kind soul” who sent it.
She added: “I am excited to share that the 1887 mortgage transfer from Oxford county that I received in the mail from an anonymous donor will be on its way to a direct descendant in British Columbia.”
Other finds have caused Ms Kelley’s direction to be turned east, with photos found in Massachusetts finding their rightful owners in Sheffield or Nottingham.
She says her project is driven by “kindness” and so funds it all herself. Though on occasion, the antique shops she frequents will offer her a discount on the photographs she buys after she explains the reason for her purchase.
So thankful are the recipients of her photographs that one sent the Photo Angel a cheque for one hundred dollars as a thank you.