Dumped behind a city centre cafe, a weathered wedding album dating back to 1957 captured one young couple's happiest day.

But who they were and how the keepsake ended up there remained a mystery until a family history enthusiast picked up the trail.

Inside, pages of black and white photographs featured the smiling newlyweds, surrounded by family and friends. Among the pictures was a barely readable faded list of names.

It was back in August when the album was found by the owners of Eva's Kitchen in Wakefield. Keen to return it to the family it belonged to, they contacted their local newspaper, which published an appeal.

The weeks went by and the album was kept safe by the cafe owners but nobody came forward to claim it.

Meanwhile, a few miles away at her home in Ossett, amateur historian Anne-Marie Fawcett had seen the story in the Wakefield Express. Able to make out one of the faintly written names, she set about uncovering the identities of the bride and groom.

"One of the names that jumped out of me was Maureen Bullivant. An unusual name like that is a researcher's dream," she explained.

"If she'd have been Smith, I might not have touched it but she was Bullivant. It's not a name I'm familiar with and certainly not a Wakefield name."

Anticipating she could be the bride, Fawcett found Bullivant in the online 1939 register, a record of the population of England and Wales at the start of World War Two, and discovered she was born in 1937 and lived with her parents in Sheffield.

She then tracked her down in the marriage index records, which showed she had married Peter Gosney in 1958 - a year after the date of the wedding captured in the photo album.

Research into Bullivant's parents provided another breakthrough. Their marriage records showed they had wed at Wadsley Parish Church in Sheffield.

"It's a place I'd never heard of so when I looked at the faded list I couldn't make it out, but as soon as I got that information I could see it," she explained.

"It's like those paint books you'd get as a kid when you put water over the page and the image would appear. It all of a sudden made sense."

From there, Fawcett used photo enhancement tools to reveal another hidden name in the inscription - Barbara Parr.

Marriage records eventually confirmed that Barbara Parr, then aged 21, had married Maxwell Dawson at the same church on 24 June, 1957, establishing them as the newlyweds in the album.

She then uncovered a Wakefield connection through electoral register records, which showed the couple living at an address on Walton Lane.

Armed with names, a date and an address, she shared her findings on the Wakefield Historical Appreciation Site, a Facebook group she helps to manage.

One of the members Michele Spurr recognised the surname and said she had gone to school with a man called Michael Dawson who used to live on Walton Lane.

"The dots were starting to connect themselves," Fawcett recalled.

"I tracked Michael down on Facebook and sent him a message, which is something I would never usually do.

"But I thought I'd be devastated if it was me and I just felt the album needed to go back to its family."

She added: "I asked him if he was the son of Barbara and Maxwell and he said yes, and then he rang me and well, I felt like we'd known each other for ages."

During their conversation, Dawson revealed the album had not simply been lost. It had been among a number of cherished family belongings stolen from a storage unit near to Eva's Kitchen.

He said the photographs were some of the only surviving images he had of his parents, both of whom have since died.

The pair met in person for the first time last week, where Dawson was reunited with the album.

The 65-year-old said: "I'm absolutely elated because I am sentimental and it's important for me to have these photos.

"I will protect it with my life now, based on the fact that it's all I've got."

Asked how he felt about Fawcett's detective efforts, he joked: "I think she probably knows more about me than I do, which is a worry."

But he added: "I thought I'd lost everything. I can't thank her enough."

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