General Chat

Stop frowning. I don't actually wish to do this. I would like to know what are the options for searching for living relatives, particularly in the UK.

So many people post living relatives queries on these boards. A lot of these queries go unanswered because of the terrifying possibility of falling foul of the board police, for whatever reason.

I need to know how to advise someone who believes they will find Uncle Fred or Aunt Maud living in their cottage in some rural part of the UK, simply by asking the question on GR.

So how do you advise these "researchers".

I understand about 192.com. About search trees on GR. I also assume you could use the current telephone directory although with a good old British name that might be a bit daft.

Do you have electoral rolls in each county. Are they searchable. I can see that BDMs are available almost up to the current date. I understand that census stop at 1911.

The information I receive will be copied and pasted into my hints folder. I will use it to advise those who ask these "controversial" questions.

I actually feel quite sorry for them with the big zero in the replies column.

I'm doing a One Name Study and someone on here very kindly sent me a list of people with my "name" from 192.

Otherwise, I'm not sure. I know that Heir Hunters (TV prog) manage to track down living relatives but I'm unclear how they do that unless it's a fairly unusual name or a small geographical area.

I'm one of those who don't help with searches for living rellies. Sorry. I know most are perfectly genuine but ... I'm not prepared to take the risk.

Best of luck.

Jill

Thanks Jill,

I must be a push over for a neglected species. I think the most appropriate way to handle a LR query is to give the enquirer the skills and information so they are able to search for themselves.

Hi AuntySherlock

In answer to one of your queries........there are ER's for each town, and they are searchable by address.

I must admit I much prefer to do the living people searches now, but I always do them *off the board* and NEVER (not shouting lol) give info about anyone under the age of 18, which is the legal age of adulthood in the UK.

Mary

Hi,

I am like Mary on this one, I normally send a pm to the person concerned and see what info they have to go on.
Full name if poss, when they where born, and last know whereabouts, and when they had last contact.

Not that I am being nosy but done too much searching for a female only to be told later, oh I know she married twice and changed her name ;O)

Forgot to say if people know the person the are looking for please mention it to those looking for them, it can make a big difference with common names.

Hello Jill,
I fondly thought I would do a mini one name study as there appeared to be so few with the unusual name - and then I hit all the variations in spelling and my mind exploded!
cheers
Jill (the other one)

Thank you for all your feedback. It is appreciated and helps to form a strategy for dealing with these types of searches.

I too have helped "behind the scenes" . It always concerns me that while I am communicating privately with the researcher some other person may be scrounging through scads of info, trying to find the answer.

This of course is common to any query answered by personal messages. A sensible solution is to place a post on the thread, "I have sent Dah Dah some information by PM".

Hi,

I normally say I will send you a pm, problem is in the case of living people you should not put their details on this forum for all to see, likewise if you ask anything of the person to whom the thread belongs, they will normally get excited and give you all sorts or personal details on here, which in turn can often result in the being told of for doing this ..........

If they just want help, I think the best thing is to do a thread with the above title., plus can anyone help me. That way is someone want to assist they can-
If you wish them to hep themselves, they need to have as much info as poss on this person, name age area.
First thing would be to check trees on here, then you have GT , Facebook etc., elec roll.
In the case of a female try to establish is she has married, and look for things under the married name.
I there is not luck with that then take the branch sideways and see if you can find siblings or children from that person.
But always be sensitive about making an approach to someone, in the family.

I would suggest trying facebook, as you can put, name, school, college, organisation that they were connected to. I've found a couple of old friends that way

The transcribed BMD records on Ancestry have made it so much more easy to search for living relatives here in England and Wales.

A while ago as an experiment, I set out to find out what I could about a former girlfriend who I had not seen for nearly 40 years, armed with only her name.

It took me no more than 30 minutes to find out where she now lived, her phone number, and the names and ages of her husband and children and her husband's parents names.

Absolutely frightening,

The other misconception is that Data Protection Act will afford some protection. It won't

It is unlikely that a prosecution will be made against a private individual, and in any event there is the defense that the information is being used for research purposes only, which is outside the scope of the legislation.

Obviously you need to use a certain amount of discretion. Whilst there is nothing illegal in searching public records, it would be indiscreet to splash the findings all over a public website.

Even sending PM's is not without its problems. How do you know the person you are dealing with is genuine? For all you know they may be part of a wider fraud scam.

I am reading and gathering your replies. When I have a spare moment on the weekend I will collate all the info into a file for future use. Thank you.

My only problem with living rellies is do they want to be found?
Have they walked out , left, not got in touch for their own reason and should I be interfering ?

I read about a lady who eventually found her missing parent, who became a stalker, made her life a misery and ended with a court injunction to keep him away.

So no I dont reply to living rellie queries!

I will PM you re search for LR





Tess

Hi Lindsay,

I do agree with you to a certain extent, you must be wary about what info you give to people, and speaking for myself I always double check out someones info before I help them.
I would not help anyone who is too young, or who seems really desperate but would point them in the the right direction of someone who can help them.

The shame nowadays, is in view of things like IF Fraud etc we have become almost paranoid on what info people have, this info can also be used for good, .....true you have that case you have read about, but have you looked at the Success stories on here :O) people do lose contact for very many reasons not all of them ominious.

Island,

I do also understand your point of view on this , but have you any idea of the back log of cases that SS and adoption agencies have to help either an adoptee or a birth parent (works both ways ) has to assist them.

That is if you do have the money in a lot of cases to ask for help some people I have been in touch with have quoted hundred of pounds, for a trace, which I myself think is outrageous.
When they offered to assist me, I went to 2 meetings to talk things though with them, then they had a meeting to see if they would help us, after that they had another meeting and said ok, they would look into it.
After 3 months we got in touch with them to find out case worked had changed and we would have to go through it all again. :O(
By the time we got the go ahead I had found my Birth family,. so maybe I was unlucky but from the run around I have heard from others I do not think so.
No one here would advocate saying here is an address for your birth family .... go for it, but most of us on here, would rather talk things though with a fellow adoptee than a stranger. That is what so good about this site, it is helpful to so many people whether your going back 1 generation or serveral .
And after all aren't we all ameteut sleuths on here ;O)

win the lotto then your family will find you xx

What all of them ;O) better win the euro lottery then !

Many different opions as I thought there would be.

I am reading the opinion that it is better to give the requester the tools to carry out the search, rather than a "volunteer" do the search for them and pass on the information.

This fits in well with my desire to have the correct information to pass onto the researcher.

Remember this query comes out of my frustration at seeing living relative requests being largely ignored or subject to much debate.

I would like to point out that if it wasnt for the help of a few sleuths on hear I would not now be in touch with birth family, having now met cousin and sister several times and also my adopted sister has now met her birth mother and sister. All these people are very happy about being found, the truth should always be out there I say. Thanks