Sharyn Crozier bought the 1860 former hotel and Cobb and Co stop in Pilliga 10 years ago and has been renovating the historic building.

The project required excavation around the foundations and because rubbish was not collected in the 1800s, she said it was common to discover silverware, bottles and old shoes.

But the greatest surprise came almost a fortnight ago when Miss Crozier discovered a white handbag containing 89 old documents pertaining to a Norma Irene Conway, including prescriptions, legal documents and personal letters.

"I have no idea how they got there," she said.

"The only correlation I can make is... in 1927 it ceased to be a hotel and was purchased by Victor Ferguson and Norma's mother was a Ferguson."

Miss Conway was born in Warren in 1909 to Alma Ann May Ferguson and Theodore Robert Eugene Conway.

She attended Peterson and Apsley Grammar at Stanmore in the early 1920s before working as a bookkeeper in Leichhardt and marrying Percy McDonald Rossiter of Terrigal in 1933.

"Percy died on the operating table," Miss Crozier said.

In 1938, a widowed Mrs Rossiter married Walter Vincent Bellamy, a station hand who went on to become a horse trainer and riding school proprietor in Molong.

Her first son, Arthur, was born in 1941 in Parramatta, followed by a daughter, Diana, at Canowindra.

Mrs Crozier believed there was a third child, Kathleen, due to a partially filled-out document giving consent for her, then a minor, to marry Douglas Meekin of Molong.

She found Mrs Bellamy fascinating due to her impeccable work references and her decision to finally change her surname legally, 26 years after her marriage.

"You would think that the marriage certificate would give you the onus to use the name without having to do it by deed poll," she said.

Miss Crozier said some family had been found in Raglan, but believed there might be more in the Orange-Molong area.

"I am hoping it sparks a memory and leads me to Norma's great-grandchildren or grandchildren," she said.

"I guess if they were my grandmother's, I would want them - they explain a lot about her life."