Woman Finds Mysterious Drawing in Her 1834 Home. Then She Uncovers a Dark Family Story (Exclusive)

Sommer Duran found one of her great-great-aunt's names written throughout the attic of her family's 1834 home, including beside a mysterious drawing of a woman

Curious about the relative she'd never known, Duran began searching census, marriage and death records along with newspaper archives

The mom has uncovered plenty of other surprises inside the nearly 200-year-old house, including animal skeletons, preserved food and a bottle containing spiders

Sommer Duran had seen one particular name again and again while exploring the attic of her family's 1834 home. Then she noticed it beside a drawing that made her want to know more.

The name belonged to one of Duran's great-great-aunts, and it was written across the attic among old dates, names and drawings left behind by generations before her, which she shared in a TikTok video. But after spotting what she describes as a "pretty graphic drawing" of a woman with her relative's name beside it, Duran couldn't stop wondering who she had been.

"That made me curious about who she was, so I started digging through census records, marriage and death records, old photographs and newspaper archives," Duran, 29, tells PEOPLE.

What she found turned a curiosity about writing on the wall into a tragic chapter of her family's history. Duran discovered that her great-great-aunt had gotten married and, only about two months later, was killed on Halloween.

Her death record lists her death as a homicide, according to Duran, who says she eventually tracked down old newspaper coverage of the case. While she can't know who created the attic drawing or what it was meant to depict, learning what happened to her relative changed the way she looked at it.

"I can't know for certain what the drawing in the attic was intended to represent, but finding out what happened to her definitely gave that graphic drawing a completely different context," she says.

It's the kind of rabbit hole Duran never expected to find herself going down when she and her husband, Antonio Duran, 27, began restoring the nearly 200-year-old house. Built by one of Sommer's ancestors in 1834, the home has remained in her family ever since, and the couple has continued finding traces of the people who lived there long before them.

The attic alone is covered in names, dates and drawings. Among them are sketches of people, a factory and an old school, which the family was eventually able to identify. In another unexpected connection between past and present, one of Duran's relatives now lives in that former school.

As the family has slowly worked its way through previously unexplored areas of the house, they've uncovered old newspapers and papers, family photographs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, an answering machine, a Flinch card game and an assortment of old bottles and jars.

Then there are the discoveries that have been a little harder to explain.

"We've found two full animal skeletons — one in the attic and another that was actually stored inside an old lunchbox," Duran says.

Underneath the house near an old well area, she came across another find she wasn't eager to investigate further: a bottle containing spiders and what appeared to be a small bone.

"I put that one back where I found it!" she says.

The old jars scattered around the property have created their own mysteries. Duran and her family went through them hoping they might discover preserved food dating back to the 1800s, though she says they haven't been able to confidently trace any of the food that far back.

So far, they've identified what appear to be preserved tomatoes, onion bulbs and raspberries. An empty Triple L mason jar, which still has its lid, appears to date from around the 1890s to early 1900s based on its logo, Duran says.

One mystery jar even fooled them. What they initially thought might be old food appears instead to be bronze paint from around 1970.

Followers who have been watching Duran document the restoration online have joined the detective work, helping identify old orange juice, medicine and pickle jars by studying their logos, markings and shapes. Relatives have also helped Duran put names to faces and make connections as she digs further into the family's past.

That research has already uncovered another sad story. Duran learned that her great-great-aunt's sister also died young, not long after getting married, following an infection.

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Still, much of what the house has revealed remains unresolved. Duran is continuing to search old records, identify relatives in family photographs and figure out how the names and objects scattered throughout the house connect to the people who once called it home.

"We're still trying to identify people in old family photographs and piece together more connections," Duran says. "Followers and relatives have helped a lot with the research."