Unclaimed Persons Solves 83 Cases by its First Birthday, Megan Retires

Unclaimed Persons (UP) is one year old today. According to a message sent by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, Unclaimed Persons has already managed to assist coroners and medical examiners in Hillsborough County, FL (Tampa); Los Angeles County, CA; Travis County, TX; San Diego County, CA; San Bernardino County, CA; and Fulton County, GA (Atlanta).  All told, the service has successfully located family members for 83 unclaimed persons.  These are are 83 families scattered across the country who are no longer wondering about their lost loved ones.  As Megan wrote, "Take a moment to let that sink in because it’s rather remarkable when you think about it."

The following was written by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak:

Given that this is our first birthday, I thought it would also be a good time to share some news about our future.  I am beyond thrilled to tell you that Skip Murray, Keri Maurus and Janis Martin will be your new leadership team.  I’m delighted because I think that Keri, Skip and Janis are an ideal combination to lead UP forward.  Among them, they have tons of case experience, outstanding research skills, a contagious can-do attitude, an intimate knowledge of UP’s operations, and astonishing organizational skills.  I know that UP’s future is in the best possible hands and will only grow stronger.

As to me, I will be “retiring,” if that’s the right word!  As you may or may not know, my involvement in all this is largely accidental.  I had quietly been researching cases for a few coroners’ offices for several years, and my RootsTelevision.com (RTV) partner, Marcy Brown, and I decided this would be a good topic for a show.  So we made one focusing on a couple of cases I did.  We went live with the show on RootsTelevision.com a little over a year ago – sometime last May, as I recall.  Once we did this, RTV was inundated with emails from genealogists saying that they wanted to do the same kind of thing.  RTV is a small company and didn’t want to become an obstacle or bottleneck to all the obvious enthusiasm for helping tackle an important problem of national scope.  I had recently started playing with Facebook and knew that they had some sort of group functionality, so I decided to launch a group there where folks could gather.  I think most of you know the story from there.  This simple gathering morphed into the organization we have today.

I am very pleased to have had a part in bringing this quiet epidemic to the attention to a large group of people who are in a position to do something about it.  And I’m honored to have played a leading role along with Dee Welborn, Terry Elliott and others in guiding UP through its first year.  My intention was to create a vehicle of sorts – an environment where people interested in the topic could solve cases that were provided by coroners.  I also thought it was important to have a conventional web presence, so I designed www.unclaimedpersons.org and had the site created.  But I never intended to run UP, and with the assorted hats I wear in the genealogical world, it’s become increasingly difficult to juggle everything.

So now seems a good time to step aside.  UP is stable and performing well, and will only get better under the stewardship of Keri, Janis and Skip.  I will assist with the transition, but from this point on, future decisions about UP’s operations will be in the hands of this capable troika!

Thanks to each one of you for all you have contributed – your time, energy, enthusiasm and talents.  And thanks for the difference you’ve made in so many lives.  You’re all amazing and it’s been my privilege to work with you.

Take care,

Megan

Comments

[Dae Powell]

A well-earned retirement, I'd say. Megan has learned much from these experiences, and, fortunately for us, she's shared them along the way. Our indebtedness and gratitude extend farther than the hats she wears, and we thank her for every inch of them.

Happy Dae·
http://ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Ken Merriman]

I would like to become involved with locating UP's in my local area. I first heard about doing this service several months ago and presented it to our local genealogy society but unfortunetly they were not interestes in doing it. How can I myself get involved with this project.

Ken
Port Charlotte Fl

[Dick Eastman]

I believe that getting involved with the Unclaimed Persons project is rather easy. Go to the project's web page at http://www.unclaimedpersons.org (make ure you enter .ORG, not .com which is a different site) and then click on "Volunteers."

- Dick Eastman

[Skip Murray]

I, along with all of our members, wish Megan the very best! Her inspiration has lead to a service that helps so many families! It is a honor to be part of such an amazing organization.

I'd also like to thank your newsletter, because when you mention us, it lets more people know about what we do. When people learn about what we do, many join us in our challenging search to find the families of these unclaimed people, and the more help we have, the more families we can help!

Skip Murray
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=143843215486

[HFM]

What a wonderful project! However, it should be entitled Unclaimed People, not Unclaimed Persons. Person is singular. If it's more than one person, they become people. Unfortunately, this is an all too common grammatical error.

Megan, thank you so very much for all you do for the genealogical community. You truly are a STAR and we are very grateful for all you've contributed in helping researchers -- especially those of us looking to get over some rough spots.