Waterdown woman finds old birth certificate in antique dresser

A Waterdown woman is trying to reunite a family with a piece of their history after she discovered an old birth certificate in an antique dresser she purchased online.

Back in May, Julie Schaafsma was scrolling through new items on Facebook Marketplace and spotted a vintage dresser.

“It was so old and stunning and the most unique piece of furniture I had ever seen. It needed a home and it literally was calling my name,” she said. “I contacted the seller and within the hour had picked it up.”

Schaafsma says the dresser was old, dirty and broken but she completely fell in love with it. Little by little, she worked over the summer to rebuild the drawers and clean the aged furniture. Then, about two weeks ago, she was working on the interior of the dresser and found a folded up piece of paper wedged in between the wood.

“I opened it up and laughed because it was on old receipt from the 50’s for tires,” she said. “I went inside to show my daughter and we laughed and thought, ‘How cool?’ I went back outside and started to wipe down some more and another piece of folded up paper peeked out.”

Schaafsma says she used extra caution when opening the paper because it was much thicker than the receipt and appeared to be quite old. “When I opened it up and realized what I was holding I actually lost my breath,” she said.

It was an original 1933 registration of birth for a man named D. Williams in Toronto. “I immediately felt overwhelmed with emotions that I was holding a really important piece of someone’s history,” she added.

Determined to return the document to Williams or one of his relatives, Schaafsma turned to Ancestry.ca. She initially found some information that appeared to be promising but nothing concretely connected the results to Williams.

She continued to dig and finally discovered a potential family member. With “nothing to lose” Schaafsma called the phone number she had tracked down and spoke with a man who said he believed Williams was his wife’s uncle.

“I was so happy,” she said. “He was genuinely appreciative of me reaching out to return this to the family.”

Schaafsma was sad to learn Williams had passed away but made arrangements to meet his niece this weekend to return the certificate. “I would have loved to have met him but unfortunately he has passed. She shared with me a little bit about him and he would have probably been pretty blown away at seeing his own birth certificate from 1933,” she said.

Schaafsma’s original plan was to fix the dresser and sell it. But now, she says she will have a hard time parting with the special item.

“I feel like I was meant to find this dresser and the certificate for whatever reason. I really hope his family loves receiving it back and it serves its purpose of being found in 2019.”