As she explained in a video, she does this by combing through flea markets for items that look like they have sentimental value and using the genealogy knowledge she picked up from her father to track down any living relatives or descendants.

As she told Insider, "Now I try and thrift at least three items per week that I can trace back to a family member."

And after hours of going through hundreds of family trees together, the duo found a promising lead to the owner's family name of Morton in a 1930 census.

Namely, that the person who once owned this photo album was apparently a distant cousin of hers.

Sure, there are a lot of degrees of separation when we're talking about fourth or sixth cousins, but that doesn't make the fact that a random item she came across in a flea market led her to newly discovered relative any less staggering.

Brown told Insider that this person doesn't want her name out there, but the distant cousin has since kept in touch with her and is excited and grateful to have the photo album back.

This really only happens once in a lifetime!

h/t: Insider