Instead of using it as drawer liner, Cristine Lund is now on the hunt for the original owner of a roll of wallpaper she purchased at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Campbell River.
“I wasn’t looking for wallpaper in particular, I was just browsing for anything interesting that I could use in one of my hobbies,” she says. “I do a lot of different crafts and more recently have started refinishing vintage and antique furniture.”
But what she had purchased was not just any wallpaper though. The $2 vintage wall covering had a six-foot family tree penciled on its back with dates that go as far back as 1593. A few thoughts went through her mind, she says, and she’s still not sure in what order.
“I was surprised at how big it was…” she says. “The dates grabbed my attention because at quick glance I didn’t see anything more recent than the 1800s. Then I thought that I can’t use use this in my hobbies… I can’t cut it up, it might be important to someone.”
Lund initially posted her find on Facebook, hoping to connect with members of the Anglo-Saxon-named families sketched on to the wallpaper: Kent, Edwards, Hodgeson, Elizabeth. She has been researching her own genealogy, so thought it be best to post in on Facebook, thinking it would be important to someone.
“People on Facebook seemed quite interested,” she says. “I guess everyone love’s a mystery.”
She plans on delivering the wallpaper to the Campbell River Genealogy Society, however, she did get a message from them that they might have found the owner already.
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