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Grieving girl discovers her late grandad watering his garden on Google Maps in heartwarming pic

A NOSTALGIC granddaughter was shocked to find her late grandad watering his garden on Google Maps in a heartwarming photo.

Luisa Hoenle, 19, was browsing the internet when she found her grandad immortilised on a Google Street View pin outside her grandparents’ home.

 Grandad Siegfried was an avid gardener before he died at the age of 93
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Grandad Siegfried was an avid gardener before he died at the age of 93
 Luisa Hoenle, 19, was browsing the internet when she discovered her grandfather on Google Maps
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Luisa Hoenle, 19, was browsing the internet when she discovered her grandfather on Google MapsCredit: Reddit

Luisa's grandfather and grandmother passed away three years ago after being married for decades in a home they built together.

Grandad Siegfried was an avid gardener and attended to his plants, bushes and trees on a daily basis before he died in 2016 at the age of 93 from cancer.

And when Luisa spotted him - dressed in overalls and green gardening gloves in a candid snap taken by a Google Maps street camera - it was a heartwarming moment.

Describing her find over Reddit, the Switzerland-based art student wrote: "Found my granpa on google maps, doing what he loved.

"He passed away two years ago due to cancer. He was the best Abuelito ever."

The snap was taken a year before Siegfried's death.

Although the image is grainy and his face has been pixelated, it has given Luisa a glimpse into the everyday life of a man she loved.

After sharing her discovery, the 19-year-old found she wasn’t alone in coming across deceased relatives on Street View.

One woman said: "Oh, this made me cry. I never thought about how many people get to exist forever on Google Maps."

Another person noted: "I look up my Gramma and Grampa’s old house on google maps all the time. They have never updated the view from the back alleyway, so the back of their house still looks as it did 10 years ago, and it feels like talking a virtual walk back in time."

And a similarly nostalgic commenter said: "I have similar google map pictures of my mom leaving her house a year before she passed.

"If you move down the street facing the house she walks down the stairs and gets in her car. It's the only moving footage I have of her."

Last year, a British tech sleuth claimed he found the wreckage of the missing MH370 plane on Google Maps.

Ian Wilson claimed he spotted the doomed jet, which vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board, lying in a high altitude area of the Cambodian jungle.

 Luisa's grandfather was dressed in overalls and green gardening gloves in the candid snap taken by a Google Maps street camera
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Luisa's grandfather was dressed in overalls and green gardening gloves in the candid snap taken by a Google Maps street cameraCredit: Reddit
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