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

• Decorator and genealogist Chelsey Brown returns long lost heirlooms to families.
• She scours flea markets and antique shops finding lost treasures that she can send back.

Chelsey Brown always loved telling stories — a passion that led her to fame on TikTok reuniting people with their own family history.

She started her career at ABC News as a TV producer, but always felt like there was something missing. In her spare time, she would decorate friends' houses and apartments, seeking treasures at flea markets and antique shops.

That's where she realized objects hold stories too.

"It would break my heart every time I would pass boxes of family heirlooms at the flea market — photo albums, jewelry, diaries, love letters, you name it," Brown told Insider. "I remember thinking to myself, oh my gosh, all of these artifacts have such great stories to tell."

Brown started collecting items that could be traceable to past owners, documenting the journey on TikTok as a hobby alongside a new career in interior design.

She now has more than 240,000 followers who come along for the ride as she finds the descendant families of WWII dog tags, decades-old school books, or a Valentine's Day card from the 1940s.

Detective work

Brown's father is a genealogist, so she had a good base of knowledge to start with when she began investigating the history of the things she found.

She said she only buys items that she thinks she has a good chance of tracing the family for; seeking dates, names, or anything tying them to a certain area. Then she uses genealogy databases, newspaper archives, census data, and a reverse search engine called Steve Morse to dig up anything she can.

Brown loves the detective aspect of what she does, and that she's helping families keep the memories of their ancestors alive.

"How can you keep their memory alive if you don't have those heirlooms? If you don't have their stories?" she asked.

Brown said she prioritizes items from World War I or World War II, particularly if they are Holocaust-related.

She said there is an "underground market" for war-related letters and photos, where sentimental items can sell for thousands of dollars.

She told Insider that she thinks it's wrong to profit that way, and spends her own money getting them back to their families for free.

Instead, she makes some money from selling journals to her fans so they can create their own time capsules.

"Family heirlooms cannot be digital. They just can't be," Brown said. "So this is my way of giving this generation and the generation under us, a family heirloom to have, to cherish, and to pass down."

It's the simplest items that have the best stories

There was one letter Brown found in October 2021 written by a woman the day she was released from a concentration camp.

"I am able to give you a sign of life from me after so many years," said the letter, which Brown had translated from German with some help from her followers. "Dad, Mom, Grete, Lottchen and Hermann: no one is alive anymore."

Brown said it was "such a powerful letter" and was just one example of the kind of items that are out there. People don't realize how many of their own ancestors' important items are being sold for a quick buck, she said, or collected by museums.

More often than not, it's photos and the letters with the best stories to tell, not the expensive art or diamond jewels.

"I learned to understand the value behind the simplest of items," Brown said. "Because in the end, some of the most fantastic, insane, craziest, most majestic movie-esque stories I've found have been behind the simplest of objects."

Usually, when Brown reaches out to a family, they think she's a scammer — "they think I'm looking for money."

Once Brown has communicated with the family a bit, though, they almost always agree to take the heirloom back, she said.

Last February, for example, Brown came across a green-lined Ukrainian photo album, written entirely in Russian. It took her four months to track anybody down, she said.

Finally Brown found a number and an email address on a website in the depths of the internet. Within 24 hours, a direct descendant of a man featured in the photo album responded to her message.

Brown said she ended up becoming close with this Ukrainian family, and kept in contact with them as the war there progressed. She hasn't been able to ship it back yet due to the fighting, but hopes to return it soon.

Occasionally, Brown decides the family is better off without the heirloom

It's rare, but occasionally Brown decides not to return an item she's found.

Sometime, it's a love letter which she thinks the descendant would much rather have remained private.

"Really graphic love letters that are almost porn, I don't return those," she said, especially if it is recent enough that the descendant might have known their relative while they were still alive.

"I would not want anyone to give me a pornographic love letter that was between my grandparents," she said. "Think about sending nudes to someone. I wouldn't want my children to freaking see that."

Other instances are where Brown finds out a family secret that could have significant negative impacts on the person's family, such as a diary that shows someone's father isn't who they thought it was.

Brown said people don't hire her to do their genealogy — she comes into their lives unexpectedly.

"When it comes to really sensitive information like that, no-one asked me to come into their life and upend it," she said. "Telling someone their parent isn't who they thought it is when they're not even expecting that, it's a real trauma. It's a real psychological mindfuck."

Brown made this choice recently when she found an old diary, and the descendant was dying. The diary revealed some unsavory details about this man's father, who he had idolized.

"It would be different if maybe he had descendants, but he doesn't," Brown said. "So it's one of those things where I'm not going to ruin this man's last few days on this earth."

If Brown holds back an item, she's "doing it for a good reason," she said. And she will continue to make those decisions, even though some people criticize her for it on TikTok.

"Morality comes into play with what I do," she said.