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My gran was a hoarder.
She kept letters - wartime letters, from her brothers, letters from her sisters, and letters between her and grandad.
Amongst the letters between herself and grandad are a couple of letters from grandad's best mate, who I will call Tom. Tom and grandad worked in the Docks, and went to the pub etc. Tom had an accident in the Docks, and the letters are from hospital. Tom and his girlfriend (later wife) who I shall call Gwen, are also mentioned in letters between my grandparents.
I'm contemplating sending the original letters from Tom to his descendants., and keeping a copy on a stick.
Tom had an unusual surname, and 'Googling' Tom & Gwen ****** came up with an obituary for their only child, John, born Southampton 1931, died in 2018, in Canada.
John has a son and a daughter.
I 'Googled' the son's name - I shall call him Bob - who, it appears retired as an executive of a Canadian company in October 2019. Just noticed, Bob's mum died in January this year.
How do I know this is Tom's grandson?
Well, Bob grew up in Southampton, and, according to an interview, he moved to Canada because of it's 'racial diversity and acceptance'. He also runs a charity in Montego Bay.
What I haven't mentioned is that Tom was black. His mother was black, his father, Bob's g grandfather, was Jamaican.
Tom's wife, Gwen was white, their son John was white, his wife was white, and their son, Bob, is white. However, Bob would have known his g grandmother and grandfather - who were both black.
It could be a coincidence, but it's a strange one.
Anyway, having established that this almost definitely is Bob, it gets weird.
I then do a spot of stalking (up to now, it's been 'research' :-D),
I look on his facebook page, still wondering if messaging him would be too weird, and notice the name of one of his friends.
This friend works at an agricultural college both ex and I used to work at.
His name sticks out, because it's one of 'those' names - and appropriate for the college. I shall call him Harry Hare. There aren't too many men called Harry Hare - and the photo's definitely the Harry Hare I knew!!
What are the chances??????
I'm seeing the ex in a couple of weeks time, and shall ask him if he's still in contact with Harry (he's not on ex's FB page). I don't hold out much hope, as it was whilst we were at the college that we split up - and Harry wasn't too happy.
Anyhow, how would you feel if a stranger contacted you, with offers of original letters your grandad wrote?
I will scan the letters and send them with the message - that may be enough for Bob, rather than the original letters, and some weird woman learning his address!
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Go for it. They can only say no, and you will have done your best to pass them to close family.
Through my research I discovered that Grandad had a sister that no one knew about. She had married and moved away, had 2 boys then died, husb remarried and had more children. I found the names of the children of 1 of the boys, and the ER sleuth on here sent me an address. I wrote, and though they were amazed, were absolutely delighted to be in touch.
And with fb, people can't complain if they are contacted.
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If I received scans of the letters and the back story with an explanation of how said 'weird woman' lol found my address I'd be fascinated.
If I just got a letter saying 'I've got some letters from your grandpa' I think I'd be a bit creeped out - but intrigued!
I discovered a cousin of my mums who I'm sure she didn't know of - he's a generation younger - just by expanding the tree. I did a bit of 'stalking/research' and found an address, wrote to him, we've met and still in touch. He confessed he'd checked out my credentials before replying :-D
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As I said in the opening post, Tom and Gwen are mentioned in some letters - going to the pub, the football, and the four of them playing 'lights out' when grandad's landlord & landlady were away :-S :-0 :-D
It sort of makes them more 'real'.
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