A while back I introduced myself and my house to everyone here. Since then, hubby and I have been busy trying to renovate our house (seriously slow expensive going) and while I stop by and check in to see if there is advice around in the Old House Forum on GW, I don't really post much.

But, we recently had a very interesting visit which I thought some of you would enjoy, so I thought I would share.

We received a handwritten letter in the mail (the first interesting thing that happened really because who writes letters anymore!) addressed to my mother in law. When we read it the writer claimed to be the great, great, great, great grand-daughter of the person who helped build part of our house. She was researching her family history and wanted to come visit from the other side of the country while she was visiting other family in the area here. We agreed, but warned her the house was still torn back to the rafters in the entire upstairs and under a major renovation.

When she arrived she had pictures that other family members had given her of a house that did not match ours, so she was thinking she had the wrong house.

That morning, hubby and I had dug out the box of things that have been found in the walls over the years. Letters, a shoe, newspapers, an old pipe, and gone through them. We had planned to show her some of the things. We were very surprised to find that on one the extremely hard to read letters, we could still very clearly read her great, great, great, great, grandfathers name!

She had the right place after all.

We assume he put on the addition we think was added around the 1800's, as he was born in 1762 and died in 1809. It turns out her family owned this property until 1893. There was 2 other random owners here before my husbands family bought in 1920.

A link to my original post is at bottom of post.

I take a few things away from this visit. First, it re-energizes me (and trust me I need it) seeing someone so inspired by the house and it's history. Second, I remember again what is so special about living somewhere with so much history. For me the house itself was old, but the history has always been in my kid's family history. Their grandparents and great grandparents lived here. Seeing another face to the history, adding another family and another 100+ years of their heritage to this house, just brought it to another level.

We let her take the letter home obviously. That is her family history.

Here is a link that might be useful: original house post