Is there much more he can do?

[sobeyondthehills]

DP's parents split when he was a baby, his mum took him about 100 miles away from his dad, if relevant this was in the 1980's.

A few years later DP's mum died suddenly, DP's father came and got him and raised him, but it was never a close relationship, having said that for some reason, all contact with DP's mum side of the family stopped.

DP's dad died 8 years ago and all those questions my partner wanted to ask him about that time never got answered.

DP asked me to do a bit of research and see if I could find his mum's mum (I don't work, he does) I found the most recent address I could.

DP wrote her a letter, that was 6 weeks ago, logically we are talking about a good 30 years and she could of moved, I am fairly sure she is still going, but I am not expert, we haven't got the letter back and he is now faced with more questions than answers, I am not sure what else he can do.

Should mention as well, he is not close to his dad's side of the family and he has asked them, but (IMO) they seem to avoid the question, but I am not sure if it because they don't know why DPs dad cut contact or they do and don't want to say

Are you sure his maternal grandmother is alive?

Does he know the names of any cousins or similar that may be younger and could be on Facebook. His grandmother may well be deceased or in care by now. There are lots of geology sites out there that could help. I personally haven't used any but my mum found a cousin online.

I have done as many checks as I can, so fairly sure, nothing registered etc

@blackcat86 he was 5 or 6 when his mum died, we have gotten all the information that we can from legal records, his mums surname is very common, so we can't get from that which one his nan might be and to be honest if we searched for a joan smith and there was a photo he couldn't say if that was or wasn't his nan

The loss of a grandson would be a trauma, and a letter out of the blue 30+ years later would be a shock.

Use the Salvation Army tracing service, who will double check tracing information and then make the approach as a neutral third party.

How tricky. In that case it sounds like he can either hire a private investigator to help or try some counselling to try and accept what has happened. I'm sure its really frustrating for him not to get those answers but you're right that searching such common names maybe a needle in a haystack

www.salvationarmy.org.uk/finding-people

@colehawlins thank you for that, that is not a place we have thought of, so I will suggest it

@blackcat86 there is no way we could afford a private investigator, he is going to councselling at the moment, which probably is the reason this is now being bought up