How Instagram reunited Noelene with a long-lost photo of her mum

"My daughter saw this photo on Instagram and she thought it was her grandmother, she forwarded it to me to verify and yes it was," Ms Martin said.

"It's distinct that it's my mum and I can see the landscape from her family farm in the background.

"In my family photos, I've never seen this photo before.

The image was posted onto an Instagram account called @thelostportraitarchive, a project that Jesica Dowell runs as a hobby.

Ms Dowell has a passion for history and has collected thousands of old family photos for over 20 years, buying them from antique stores, tip shops and op shops.

"I just couldn't bear the thought of them disappearing I suppose," Ms Dowell said.

"I said to my husband recently that I really feel like it's time to try and track down who they are and if we can reunite them with their families.

"I thought I'm going to start an Instagram page, I'll put them on there, I'll try and link in with people who are historians or interested in old photos and I guess the more eyes we get on the photos, the better to helps us hopefully identify people."

Ms Dowell only started the page a couple of weeks ago and has already identified six people and made contact with three people, however it takes some detective work and a bit of crowd sourcing to identify who is in each picture.

"It's quite a small photograph, maybe five by 10 centimetres," she said.

"I magnified it and managed to find a stamp that's very smudged on the back of the photo, and I could make out the word Hay.

"Someone else who saw the photo on Instagram said that they found in ancestry or somewhere, or an archive, a stamp for a photo for a chemist in Hay that looked very similar.

"So I found a Facebook page of vintage Hay Memories and posted it on there and everyone was in discussion and then a lady popped up and said that that was my mum and this is definitely her.

That lady was Noelene Martin, who lives in Uranquinty, and is currently waiting for the photo to arrive via the post.

Ms Martin couldn't be happier to have it back in the family and said that while she has many pictures of her mother throughout her life, this particular image fills in a gap.

"I'm thinking at that age, she's in her mid-teens," Ms Martin said.

"I don't have a great many photos of my mum around that age, so it will be very, very special to us.

"I've spoken to a couple of family members and they're very excited, we cannot wait to receive it in the mail.

"It'll be showed around the family first and then obviously it'll be framed and it'll fit with the rest of the family photos."

Ms Martin is thankful she is getting the photo returned to her and respects Ms Dowell's project in re-homing the pictures with their families and encourages her to keep up the good work.

"I'd like to thanks Jes very much for doing this wonderful job connecting these photos with all their families," she said.

"I think it is brilliant, what shes's doing."

As for Ms Dowell, she's just happy to see her passion for history bring joy to the families of the discarded photos she's rescued over the years.

"We are a cumulation of our ancestors and their stories and their lives, I feel like when people pass away, there's not much left other than their stories or something tangible," she said.

"I've got video footage of my grandfather dancing at my parent's wedding and I'd never known him, I'd never seen him dance or move before.

"Old photos of our ancestors that help maintain that life story, for me I've always place so much value on it.

"I think when people discard photos, whether it be accidental or not, it feels like to me a bit of a loss of that person's story or their legacy."