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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Nick Davies

Experience: a postcard delivered 121 years late led me to my long-lost family

Portrait of Nick Davies sitting on a bench next to a letterbox in Henfield, West Sussex, with a copy of the 121-year-old postcard from his grandfather
Nick Davies holding the postcard, of a print based on an Edwin Landseer oil painting of a stag in the Scottish Highlands, and postmarked 1903. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian

I n August last year I received a message on Ancestry.com. A lady called Rhian, who shared my surname, had sent me a link to a recent BBC news story, which I read with mounting interest.

The head office of the Swansea Building Society, the story said, had recently received a postcard postmarked 1903 and originally sent to a girl called Lydia Davies, who had lived at the address. Having mysteriously received the postcard 121 years after it was posted, staff were hoping to trace one of her descendants.

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