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AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Hundreds of items were auctioned off recently at Pot of Gold Estate Liquidation in Avondale, Ariz. Some were worth thousands of dollars, but none were more valuable than an 1864 family Bible.
Mary Marsh found it on the auction list and knew it couldn't just go to the highest bidder.
"It felt like there was an angel on my shoulder saying, ‘You've got to do this, you've got to do this,'" she said.
She felt compelled to find the family the Bible belonged to, so she quickly got to work. She googled the last name and town. That took hours. So she turned to Ancestry.com. She posted the information, names and even pictures left in the Bible. Her efforts paid off when she connected with Ann Abbott Stong.
"I knew immediately," Stong said. "I recognized handwriting as well as recognizing the names."
Stong is the oldest known person in her family who's been searching for her past, for years. She believes the family Bible holds the answers to her questions, but she had to act fast because it was going to auction.
So she travelled all the way from Denver to Arizona to find her long-lost ancestors.
"I pray that it's the correct family," Marsh said.
Stong bid on the Bible and won, but the auctioneer had a surprise. He said the auction company decided to give her the Bible and pay the consignment. The auction crowd cheered while Stong was overcome with emotion.
Her history, her ancestors, were found in this Bible -- all the missing pictures and names of her great-great-grandparents.
"I've got all the family straightened out for sure now," she said. "I'm so happy."
"It was emotional," Marsh said. "I cried because to think it's been missing for 140 years from her family. It just feels so right, like it needs to go home."
