A Fredericton restaurant is turning to social media in the hopes of tracking down the owner of several memory cards that contain vintage photos.
The owner of the Coffee Mill Restaurant is on a mission to solve a mystery -- a mystery that all started with the discovery of a camera case.
“We found it in the lost-and-found box, and we were curious to see what it was,” said owner Melodie Martens. “Sometimes, maybe it's identification or a phone that you can open up and kind of get more information from it. So when we opened it up, it was memory cards.”
Staff members say the memory cards contain almost 300 photos, many of which are black and white and were clearly taken decades ago.
The memory cards also contain photos of some documents that date back to the 1970s and have the surname “Roberge.”
“There was a death certificate, there was the certification for a university or something that had that name on it,” said Melodie Martens.
The restaurant has shared some of the photos on its Facebook page in an attempt to track down the owner and the post has gotten a lot of attention.
“We reached, say, 20,000, and then the next day we'd check in and there'd be 40,000, 60,000,” said director of operations Katie Martens. “There was an incredible number of people that were coming in and checking on these photos, and people were commenting and saying they were doing their own research.”
They haven't been able to track down the rightful owner yet, but along with the photographs there is another clue that could help find them.
The camera case and its contents were discovered around Christmastime.
“People travel far away, some people come from as far as Vancouver or other countries, so it's really challenging to narrow down where the people came from,” said Katie Martens.
Wherever that may be, this restaurant is determined to see the memory cards full of memories back in the right hands.
Anyone with any information about the photos is asked to contact The Coffee Mill Restaurant.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Lyall.
