Ever had anyone turn up on the doorstep?!

[LymondSevigny]

Sort of like turning up on the doorstep...

I contacted an old school friend and arranged to visit her to catch up on old times.  When she told me where she lived, I got the surprise of my life as she now lives in some converted farm buildings on the farm where my grandmother was born, and my g-grandfather was a tenant.

I have also discovered that a couple who once lived in the farm where the above grandmother actually grew up liked the name of it so much that they used the name for their winery in New Zealand.  It's lovely wine!

Anne

[aghadowey]

I went to take a photograph of an ancestral home for a relative in New Zealand where my great-great-grandmother was reared (was in the family until mid-1900s) and was invited by the current owner to see an old photo of it (before renovations). Inside I was introduced to his wife who looked at me rather strangely and said they'd heard all about me from her husband's cousin! Was totally puzzled until cousin's name was mentioned- a relative of my husband through his maternal grandmother. Thus, my husband's relative was living in a house formerly belonging to my relatives!

[Jane Masri]

Wow, what are the odds?

Jane

[bykerlads]

Not exactly turning up on the doorstep, but 3years ago entirely by chance OH was out in the lane in front of our house when 2 chaps and their children had stoppped outside whilst passing on a walk.
The men were telling their children that they had lived in our house as boys.
OH realised exactly who they were and invited them in to look round. We bought the house in 1976 when the owners were divorcing- these chaps were the 2 little lads we vaguely remembered when viewing the house. They both confessed to having been "torn to pieces" by the move but were delighted to know it had always remained a family house which despite our many renovations still had many features which they remembered.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I don't know how I'd feel about it, if someone just turned up on the doorstep. I certainly couldn't do it myself to anyone. I'm rather diffident about even writing to contact a relative I've "found" but don't actually know. I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of possible information - but I still don't think I'd ever manage it.

[flood169]

I would always be pretty wary of turning up on a strangers door step looking for information about a family tree. Especially in this day and age. I think the correct method of first contact should be a letter.
A couple of years ago in my town, a sheltered housing complex was targeted by a local scumbag druggie. She knocked on the doors of vulnerable old people saying that she was researching a family tree. Upon being hoodwinked and inviting this piece of filth inside, the handbag was robbed. It was in the local paper.
The worse thing was that this filth got simply fined and a few weeks later, she carried out exactly the same scam at another sheltered housing scheme. This time she was jailed for a year, out in six months and no doubt plotting the latest line in vileness to feed this filthy habit.
I did myself once knock on the door of an elderly former neighbour of a late relative. This lovely old lady did ask me in and although I am a genuine guy, I felt terrible for some reason. I was concerned that this lady could have been inviting in any sort! I just asked her a quick question, made my excuses and wrote to her a week later. We later met up in town a chatted for ages.

[Yasmina4]

yes flood 169 I would feel disturbed to be invited into a house.

The problem is that elderly people can be lonely and vulnerable.

Some years ago I worked for a catalogue company and was often invited in for tea when I called out of the blue.

On my travels saw double glazing cold callers diapearing into houses too!

sandra

[iluleah]

I purchased my home in 2004, a 200 year old flax millers cottage, river running in the front garden, the old stone ruins of the mill wheel house and all the stone built waterways, my 'neighbours' ( about 1 mile away) her xg grandfather had built the cottage, he was the miller and because of my interest I had asked her what history she knew about it, she gave me photo's of her aunt and grandmother outside the front of the cottage, at that time it was no longer thatched but with a 'riggerly tin' roof..so I set out to research its history and that of the local area....

A knock on the door one day from a couple from Australia who's aunt they said she had lived in the cottage, and the story went that she was a horse breeder, I had the deeds so looked on there as I knew it was owned by the same family who had built it, it turned out( after lots more research)  she rented it and provided the horses for the wagon stop which is now two stone barns behind the property on a one track road with grass growing down the middle which is only used by the daily milk lorry and Steven who farms down the road, that road used to be the main Belfast to Dublin road. They had her accounts book which she also seemed to use as a diary writing in how many horses she supplied to the wagons in that month along with what was happening locally and a whole chunk of history was accounted for which later matched the many stories about the area I had been told by locals, it was great that a piece of the history was on the other side of the world and had found its way back to be reunited with my beloved 'cottage' with it 2' thick stone walls and now fully restored.
The stories these walls could tell which are no longer 'lost', written up and I have been busy producing them in pictorial textile hangings which decorate its walls, made from the flax grown and  linen produced on its land as my contribution to a wonderful rich and diverse history of a very normal but very beautiful cottage.

[bykerlads]

Though our own experience of meeting former residents was easily verifiable, I'd very much agree that caution should be exercised with people just turning up on the pretext of family research. (quite an alarmingly beguiling little scam)
If they just came knocking at the door, I think I'd ask them to give me their family details and arrange to contact them later- amidst my usual response to unknown callers: I always make much mention of my having dogs(plural) and sons ( plural) living in the house.
Though the chance to link up with anyone who had info about the house would be a real treat, I must say.