Doreen Moran, Punta Gorda, Florida: As a child, I was fascinated by the trunk that came from Ireland with my great-grandmother Agnes (Gourley) McComb. When she passed, the trunk was the one thing I asked for from her house in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was mostly filled with scraps of cloth for quilts, but at the very bottom were my great-grandfather’s naturalization papers. I learned that Samuel McComb came from Bessbrook, Ireland, on the Lord Gough in 1888.

Gail Jordan, Logan, Utah: My father passed away in 1977. After my mother died in 1990, my brothers and I discovered a paper bag stored in the rafters of their house. The bag contained journals my father had kept before he married my mother. The journals ranged from 1919, when he was 17 years old, to 1939, when he was 37. I was delighted to learn about his early life as well as his views on things going on in the world at that time.

Linda Whitmore, The Villages, Florida: I found many artifacts while renovating an 1890 home in home in Silverton, Oregon. The items included a child’s button shoe and little rubber toys (in the crawlspace under the house), the gold case of a lady’s watch (in the garden), sheet music and an 1890s newspaper (between wall studs). Also, there was a carpenter’s signature and the date "July 18, 1889" written on a board under the fish-scale siding of a high gable. As we made repairs, we left our own artifacts for future owners, including contemporary newspapers and repair dates in the walls.

Gale Kane, Bartlesville, Oklahoma: While browsing online for Tennessee antiques, I noticed a political handbill from the 1828 presidential election denouncing Andrew Jackson for the execution of the "Tennessee Volunteers." Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the handbill named my ancestor Edward Lindsay, one of Jackson's victims. Lindsay’s fate had been a longstanding mystery in my research. Of course, I bought the handbill!

Linda Waha, Erie, Pennsylvania: My father told me that he had a baby brother who died, but I was unable to find any record of the child. After my grandmother died, my parents discovered an old baking powder can that contained a newspaper announcement about the baby's death. Thank goodness they opened that old can instead of tossing it away.

Cheryl Kapfer, Boonville, New York: In 2016, I received a call from a woman in Arkansas who explained that her daughter-in-law's father had found an old picture album while cleaning out a home in Florida. The album contained photos of my great-great-grandparents Charles and Melissa Crandall VanGuilder, their children, and other relatives. It took the Arkansas woman six months of research to identify the people in the album and link them to me.