Quoting from the San Antonio Express-News:
A San Antonio genealogy buff who "just had to do something to help," used her computer to track down the family of Ada Roppolo, a New Orleans nursing home resident evacuated to San Antonio last weekend with no medical records or history. New Orleans medical evacuee Ada Roppolo's background is no longer a mystery. The 88-year-old Alzheimer's patient had been in a Kenner, La., nursing home that was crippled by Hurricane Katrina.
"I did it as a good Samaritan with hopes that God will bless me," said Barbara Harrell, who has been researching family trees for 35 years. "These people are in such dire straits and this lady looked so pretty."
Harrell read about Roppolo in Thursday's Express-News, which reported on how the elderly woman was airlifted to San Antonio last weekend with no identification aside from a yellowing wristband. That ID bracelet, it turns out, misspelled her name as Roppola.
But Harrell figured it out as she did her online detective work, which led her to Roppolo's nephew, David E. Duthu in St. Rose, La., about 20 miles west of New Orleans.
You can read the rest of this touching story on the MySA.com web site.
