This Christmas, I did something remarkable – reuniting a Christmas card to its rightful recipient.
Every year I receive some cards to unknown people at my address. Perhaps the intentional recipients had lived here 20 years ago. Perhaps the senders never bother to update their Christmas card lists.
This year, one particular Christmas card felt heavy. It either contained a stash of cash or some photographs.
I opened the card.
Personalised Christmas card with ancestors’ details
The Christmas card contained hand-written sentences (i.e. not just printed ‘Merry Christmas’). It contained photocopied black-and-white images of old photographs of someone’s ancestors(i.e. the people in the photographs sat very still and didn’t smile.). The sender mentioned the family tree and relatives’ names.
As a decent citizen fired by Christmas spirit, I decided to find the recipient. I posted my query on streetlife.com, the most efficient local social network.
Streetlife is a powerful website, free and simple to use, which connects and benefits people in the local communities.
Finding clues on Streetlife
I posted a message: Looking for a Westbury family.
Andy W from Valley Park saw my posting and sprang into action. Andy sent me this message:
“Janet, I saw your post regarding the Westbury family earlier. I’m a member of one of the family history sites that let you search the electoral roll. I’ve just done a search for Westbury’s in Eastleigh, and it’s only come up with one result listing (names of recipients)…”
Within 24 hours, armed with Andy’s correct information, I knocked on the door of the rightful recipient of an important Christmas card. The recipient actually just lived a few houses away from me. She told me they have lived at their current address for 25 years. It was a surprise that we haven’t met each other though we live in the same close – I have lived here for about 14 years.
It took a mysterious Christmas card, the local social network Streetlife, and a local resident in Valley Park, to reunite an important Christmas card to my neighbour.
Do you know your neighbours? What do you do with strange Christmas cards being delivered to the wrong address?
Related posts:
[…] Christmas, I reunited an important Christmas card with its recipient, through the help of Streetlife […]