A postcard which was delivered 121 years after it was posted has reunited long-lost family members who recognised their relatives.
Last week, the Swansea Building Society said on social media that the postcard (with a 1903 postmark) arrived at its Cradock Street, Swansea, address with the rest of the mail, much to the bemusement of its employees.
The postcard was addressed to Lydia Davis, who employees think may have lived at the address back when it was a house rather than a bank. It turns out that they were correct. "The address is correct, we are still 11 (and 12) Cradock Street, but it's 121 years later than expected," Henry Darby, the bank's marketing and communications officer, told Wales Online at the time.
The card, written by a boy called Ewart to his sister Lydia, gained quite a bit of publicity and, after seeing the story, two families came forward and discovered they were related.
Ewart's grandson, Nick Davies, 65, said: "It’s like a family reunion, where the only connection you have is a common ancestor dating back to over a 100 years ago." After they all met up, he said that meeting new family members following the card was "extraordinary".
Mr Davies said Ewart would have been 13, "just a schoolboy spending the summer holidays at his grandfather’s house in Fishguard." Adding: "It seems that his eldest sister Lydia collected postcards, and this postcard that miraculously appeared last week was one that he had sent back home to Swansea."
Ewart and Lydia were brother and sister and were two of six children living at 11 Cradock Street in 1903. Lydia's great nieces, Helen Roberts, 58, and Margaret Spooner, 61, from Swansea, recognised her in the card. As did Lydia's great-granddaughter, Faith Reynolds, who had been unaware her relative had siblings.
Ms Roberts said she has been building her family tree for six years and said: "It is emotional because I didn’t know these family members existed. They have knowledge and photographs of previous generations, it’s just putting it all together."
She said she hoped Lydia and Ewart were looking down saying: "That’s nice".