Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting feature article about “Unclaimed Persons.” In 2008 Megan Smolenyak started “Unclaimed Persons” to help coroners track down the family details of persons who died without leaving information about their next of kin.
She started this project assisting the coroner of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, and it has now grown to assist coroners in 40 states. There are over 500 volunteers working on hundreds of unsolved cases.
We were particularly proud to see that GenealogyBank was cited as one of the top Internet sites to comb for clues when doing this difficult family detective work. We are pleased to be assisting genealogists every day, including these genealogical volunteers working to bring closure in the cases of these persons who had lost touch with their families.
Read the complete Wall Street Journal article “Internet Sleuths on the Hunt for Next of Kin” online here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893004579060051928045642.html