The only thing worse than getting a call from the coroner might be not getting one about someone you love because you couldn’t be located as next-of-kin.
Apparently, even in our hyper-connected age, the problem of so-called “unclaimed persons” is growing. It’s not that these people are John and Jane Does; the coroners are able to identify them. It’s just that they didn’t live with family members, or were estranged from loved ones, and despite good faith efforts, coroners can’t find the long-lost mothers, brothers and children left wondering about them.
This is where the volunteer organization Unclaimed Persons steps in to help. Genealogists of all stripes volunteer their time to research the family history of the deceased in the hopes of helping medical examiners find someone to call.
“I always refer to it as a quiet epidemic,” says Megan Smolenyak, a professional genealogist, the founder of Unclaimed Persons and author of Who Do You Think You Are? She started doing this sort of work herself years ago after reading about an unclaimed person in nearby Lackawanna County, Penn. Soon she was helping that coroner’s office with several more cases, as well as providing research to the San Bernardino, Calif. coroner’s office.
When her work with unclaimed bodies was featured on her genealogy-centric online channel Roots Television in 2008, she was shocked by the “virtual hand-raising” of other genealogists eager to help. So she launched Unclaimed Persons and has watched it grow to a network of more than 400 volunteers. After a year of running it almost full-time, she handed the reins over to three volunteers: Janis Martin, Keri Maurus and Skip Murray.
Here’s how the organization works: medical examiners, coroners and investigators provide information about the deceased to Unclaimed Persons. Unclaimed Persons administrators put out the call to volunteers, who start digging to find the names and contact information for close family members without actually contacting them. When they have leads they’re confident about, they send the info back to the coroner and the coroner’s office begins trying to contact and confirm the next-of-kin.
It’s trying work. A single case could involve published obituaries, Social Security records, property records, court records, genealogical databases and the 1930 Census, to name just a few sources. The work is rewarding, though. ”Even when there have been estrangements, the family is grateful to hear,” says Smolenyak. ”Otherwise they would be wondering for years.”
Since June 2008, Unclaimed Persons has helped locate family members in 221 cases.
Sometimes, the genealogists even get to find out the back story. Smolenyak tells a story of one man she researched, a Mormon who was one of 11 siblings. He was found dead in a Jeep in the desert. She located the only surviving sibling and was able to speak to him (usually, Unclaimed Persons volunteers are forbidden from contacting family members, since that’s the coroner’s purview).
The brother explained that he hadn’t seen the dead man in more than 50 years, since he kicked him out of his house for refusing to leave the bathroom before he finished shaving. “It was some simmering feud over something trivial,” Smolenyak says. ”The solution half the time is to just pick up the phone and call the brother you never talk to.”
To volunteer with Unclaimed Persons, request to join the private Facebook group. All are welcome.