How a TikTok sleuth reveals long-lost letters and heirlooms, then reunites them with their households

• Decorator and genealogist Chelsey Brown returns lengthy misplaced heirlooms to households.
• She scours flea markets and vintage outlets discovering misplaced treasures that she will be able to ship again.
• She now has over 240,000 TikTok followers watching her work, and the ethical dilemmas it will probably deliver.

Chelsey Brown all the time liked telling tales — a ardour that led her to fame on TikTok reuniting folks with their very own household historical past.

She began her profession at ABC Information as a TV producer, however all the time felt like there was one thing lacking. In her spare time, she would beautify buddies’ homes and flats, in search of treasures at flea markets and vintage outlets.

That is the place she realized objects maintain tales too.

“It might break my coronary heart each time I’d cross containers of household heirlooms on the flea market — picture albums, jewellery, diaries, love letters, you identify it,” Brown instructed Insider. “I bear in mind pondering to myself, oh my gosh, all of those artifacts have such nice tales to inform.”

Brown began accumulating gadgets that might be traceable to previous homeowners, documenting the journey on TikTok as a pastime alongside a brand new profession in inside design.

She now has greater than 240,000 followers who come alongside for the experience as she finds the descendant households of WWII canine tags, decades-old college books, or a Valentine’s Day card from the Forties.

Detective work

Brown’s father is a genealogist, so she had an excellent base of information to begin with when she started investigating the historical past of the issues she discovered.

She mentioned she solely buys gadgets that she thinks she has an excellent likelihood of tracing the household for; in search of dates, names, or something tying them to a sure space. Then she makes use of family tree databases, newspaper archives, census information, and a reverse search engine referred to as Steve Morse to dig up something she will be able to.

Brown loves the detective side of what she does, and that she’s serving to households preserve the reminiscences of their ancestors alive. 

“How will you preserve their reminiscence alive if you do not have these heirlooms? If you do not have their tales?” she requested.

Brown mentioned she prioritizes gadgets from World Warfare I or World Warfare II, notably if they’re Holocaust-related.

She mentioned there’s an “underground market” for war-related letters and pictures, the place sentimental gadgets can promote for hundreds of {dollars}.

She instructed Insider that she thinks it is mistaken to revenue that means, and spends her personal cash getting them again to their households at no cost.

As an alternative, she makes some cash from promoting journals to her followers to allow them to create their very own time capsules.

“Household heirlooms can’t be digital. They only cannot be,” Brown mentioned. “So that is my means of giving this technology and the technology below us, a household heirloom to have, to cherish, and to cross down.”

It is the best gadgets which have the very best tales

There was one letter Brown present in October 2021 written by a lady the day she was launched from a focus camp.

“I’m able to offer you an indication of life from me after so a few years,” mentioned the letter, which Brown had translated from German with some assist from her followers. “Dad, Mother, Grete, Lottchen and Hermann: nobody is alive anymore.”

Brown mentioned it was “such a robust letter” and was only one instance of the form of gadgets which are on the market. Individuals do not realize what number of of their very own ancestors’ vital gadgets are being bought for a fast buck, she mentioned, or collected by museums.

Most of the time, it is pictures and the letters with the very best tales to inform, not the costly artwork or diamond jewels.

“I realized to grasp the worth behind the best of things,” Brown mentioned. “As a result of ultimately, a few of the most incredible, insane, craziest, most majestic movie-esque tales I’ve discovered have been behind the best of objects.”

Often, when Brown reaches out to a household, they assume she’s a scammer — “they assume I am in search of cash.”

As soon as Brown has communicated with the household a bit, although, they nearly all the time comply with take the heirloom again, she mentioned.

Final February, for instance, Brown got here throughout a green-lined Ukrainian picture album, written totally in Russian. It took her 4 months to trace anyone down, she mentioned.

Lastly Brown discovered a quantity and an electronic mail handle on a web site within the depths of the web. Inside 24 hours, a direct descendant of a person featured within the picture album responded to her message.

Brown mentioned she ended up turning into shut with this Ukrainian household, and stored in touch with them because the warfare there progressed. She hasn’t been capable of ship it again but because of the combating, however hopes to return it quickly.

Often, Brown decides the household is best off with out the heirloom

It is uncommon, however sometimes Brown decides to not return an merchandise she’s discovered. 

Someday, it is a love letter which she thinks the descendant would a lot fairly have remained personal. 

“Actually graphic love letters which are nearly porn, I do not return these,” she mentioned, particularly whether it is latest sufficient that the descendant may need recognized their relative whereas they had been nonetheless alive.

“I’d not need anybody to offer me a pornographic love letter that was between my grandparents,” she mentioned. “Take into consideration sending nudes to somebody. I would not need my youngsters to freaking see that.”

Different situations are the place Brown finds out a household secret that would have vital detrimental impacts on the individual’s household, similar to a diary that reveals somebody’s father is not who they thought it was.

Brown mentioned folks do not rent her to do their family tree — she comes into their lives unexpectedly. 

“With regards to actually delicate info like that, no-one requested me to return into their life and upend it,” she mentioned. “Telling somebody their dad or mum is not who they thought it’s after they’re not even anticipating that, it is an actual trauma. It is an actual psychological mindfuck.”

Brown made this alternative just lately when she discovered an previous diary, and the descendant was dying. The diary revealed some unsavory particulars about this man’s father, who he had idolized.

“It might be completely different if perhaps he had descendants, however he does not,” Brown mentioned. “So it is a type of issues the place I am not going to break this man’s previous couple of days on this earth.”

If Brown holds again an merchandise, she’s “doing it for an excellent motive,” she mentioned. And she is going to proceed to make these selections, though some folks criticize her for it on TikTok.

“Morality comes into play with what I do,” she mentioned.