Thursday, June 5, 2008

Want to help find Unclaimed Persons' families?

We heard last week about unclaimed persons and many of us watched the video on www.RootsTelevision.com on Unclaimed Persons, in which Megan Smolenyak solved one case (Joseph R. Higgs), and got important information on a second person, John Finch. You can also watch the video of Megan searching for information about Joseph Higgs in this video.

Megan posted today that the second case, that of John Finch, was solved by Kimberly Powell of About:Genealogy web site fame. Congratulations to Kimberly and Megan - they have shown what can be done to solve these Unclaimed Persons cases.

As a result of these successes, Megan and RootsTelevision have decided to pursue these cases with some vigor. Megan's post says:

"We realized that almost everything about this was experimental," said Marcy Brown, co-founder of RootsTelevision.com. "Not only the pairing of coroners and genealogists, but also the use of online video to bring attention to a serious, but hidden problem of national scope. We hope that this is just the beginning and are trying to figure out the best way to facilitate the resolution of additional cases. As a first step, we invite people to join the Unclaimed Persons group we've just launched on Facebook" (those who are new to Facebook will need to register)."

I decided to look into this because I do have a Facebook account (does any reader want to be My Friend on Facebook?) and signed up to participate in this effort because it may be educational, interesting and challenging, and also to help find some of the families of these unclaimed persons on a pro bono basis.

If this interests you, click on the link above and sign up with Megan and a fine crew of genealogists looking for a challenge.

3 comments:

Taneya said...

I've just joined the group and will send you a friend request!

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Thanks for the head's up, Randy. I've joined the group.

GrannyPam said...

I joined also, and sent you the dreaded friend request.