Family History Stalkers
 

My former boss's daughter wants to find family.

Well I have. Extremely elderly, on a public electoral roll, in a very well-maintained road.

The question is, do I put them in touch with each other? They have had nearly seventy years to contact each other, had they wanted to.

My gut feeling is that it would end in tears, that they will have nothing in common with each other.

Has anyone else done this for a friend, and if you did, did it work?

Can you explain to boss's daughter that they are elderly and they may not want contact for all sorts of reasons unconnected and she really can't go crashing into their world. I would be blunt with her to be honest.

Explain that she should write a letter explaining who she is and enclose her contact details, address and phone numbers, perhaps even a SAE too, that you will post. I assume being elderly they may not have any form of computer or smart phone.

Actually, their very age - they must be in their late nineties - may deter her. I think she wants to be part of a family. But yes, her writing would be far more sensible than me doing it.

I assume they don't have any descendents that can be contacted first.

I would be blunt because not everyone wants long lost family turning up out of the blue no matter how much someone else wants it. Also being in their 90s you don't know what their health is like!

I have found a couple of daughters. The problem with this game, the more research you do, the more suspicious it looks. If I traced them through a couple of marriages, what would they think?

Oh heck, one of the daughters is on UTube.:rolleyes:

If she writes to them I suggest she asks that, if they don't want contact, please would they put her letter in the SAE and post it back. Then she will know they did receive her letter, but not to try again!

I have a friend whose daughter has caused her parents and her outlaws considerable upset by not allowing them contact with their grandchildren.

In fact the outlaws didn't know they had 3 more grandchildren or a great grandchild until fairly recently but have managed to meet their grandchild and great grandchild once I believe. Unfortunately the granddaughter is now back under the influence of her mother and so contact has been lost with everyone once again.

I agree that if she wants contact that she should write to them - it may be that they were the reason why she hasn't had contact for some reason but giving them the choice of meeting her might be what they've been waiting for for decades.

I put this here for consideration!

I now live in a retirement complex and we have just had our regular newsletter, part of which warns us all of accepting into our lives "strangers who claim to be distant family". This is no doubt prompted by a recent awful murder.

Whilst Phoenix's colleague has the best of genuine intentions, here is one reason why a couple well into their 90s may view the approach with great suspicion, or those who guard them might. I would do as Merry suggests, approach in writing with an sae.

OC

It horrified me when a cemetery put their records online. Using electoral rolls, you could easily pick out vulnerable widows.