The Neath woman had a good idea of her family tree on her father’s side of the family, but there was still mystery surrounding her mother’s patriarchal route, until a recent breakthrough.

Findmypast.com.au, an online ancestry research tool, released more than 400,000 NSW wills.

This included the will of Mrs Leggatt’s great-grandmother – Lillie Louisa Palmer.

“My ... great-grandmother’s will came up,” Mrs Leggatt said. “We knew she owned property because my grandfather received it after she died.

“But we found out about another property in Sydney that we had no idea about.

“For a woman to own two blocks of land in 1935 is quite significant.”

The will uncovered that the second piece of land was also inherited and Mrs Leggatt plans to track the property down.

It also gave Mrs Leggatt a good starting point to find out more about Lillie Louisa Palmer, who turned out to be an interesting character in her ­family tree.

She was born a Palmer, married into the Phillips family and when her husband died remarried into the Butler family. 

The three names could make it hard to track the family line, but Mrs Leggatt said tools like Findmypast made the process quicker.

“I want to know about where I come from for myself and for my children,” she said.

“When I found out about the wills, I thought I would go and have a play.

“I never thought I would come across all of this.”

Mrs Leggatt encouraged everyone to research their ancestry and record their family story before the memories and the people who hold them are gone.