Woman's discovery on Google Maps after her grandparents' death stuns the internet

Google Street View is a unique feature launched by Google in 2007 that captures snapshots of roads, cities and even small neighborhoods. The feature often blurs people's faces for privacy reasons, but it has still helped many people locate some throwback clips of their loved ones and the location where they lived. Similarly, Natalee Nield, a 33-year-old woman from Manchester, UK—who goes by @natalee_marie_1 on TikTok—uploaded two pictures on her TikTok page, making a lot of netizens emotional.

"Grief is love with nowhere to go," she captioned under the pictures she uploaded and it has received over 647k views so far. In the first slide, she uploaded a picture of a house and a car in front of it. "When your mum tells you to search your grandparents' house on Google Maps," the overlay text read. The second picture gives more context as we can see two elderly individuals getting out of the silver car and their faces are blurred. But it did not take Nield long to realize that it was the picture of Walter and Freda, her grandparents who had passed away years ago. Nields lost her grandfather 6 years ago and her grandmother 2 years ago, but looking at the pictures, she felt that "they were still alive."

Nield told Newsweek that she had a close relationship with her grandparents and helped take care of them before they died in 2017 and 2021. However, a message she received from her mother prompting her to check the Google Street View of her grandparents' house surprised Nield. "I did and discovered both of them—not even just one. I didn't expect to even see one of them, so it was amazing," she told the outlet. "It almost felt like they were still here, as it looks so familiar." 

Nield, who works as a self-employed nail tech, admitted that she has always been a "granddad's girl." Her grandpa even urged her to return to her business while she was caring for him in his final days. She named her nail salon after The Regent bus, which was released in 1939, when her grandpa was born and to honor him, she called it The Regent Salon. "I pitched it to my mum, who was so shocked," she said. "Because my nana and granddad had met at The Regent Pub on Regent Road in Salford! I now have some of Granddad's buses also in the salon in his memory."

She was also stunned at the response she got from the TikTok community and how a lot of them could relate to her mix of grief and joy upon discovering pictures of her grandparents. @fev89 shared, "I've just checked my grandparent's old house. and it's trashed. They've been gone a while now and it was sold and rented out." @beebe_gallini commented, "Take a screenshot. My dad was on Google Maps in the front yard. It's since been updated. Glad I took a screenshot." @c0rnbreado wondered, "Is this Thirlmere Avenue in Stretford? Legit lived the next door alone, out of shot for years! I'm pretty sure I spoke to them a few times. Lovely people" @but_first_boba added, "2 years after my dad passed away, I randomly looked up Google Street view of our house and I saw him in the yard with the dog. I showed my mom and we cried."

You can follow Natalee Nield (@natalee_marie_1) on TikTok for more content on lifestyle.