What if they don’t want to be found?

[JoannaGroats]

I belong to a regional “memories of yesteryear” type Facebook group. It’s mostly pictures of well known locations, long gone venues and other such reminiscences. However, every so often there are posts along the lines of “I’m desperate to trace my brother/half-sister/cousin who I haven’t seen since 1982; last known address 27 Livingston Road, Nine Oaks. She used to work at NatWest bank in Bromford back when I last saw her”.

People are always very keen to help, suggesting other groups they may belong to, could you contact HR at NatWest’s head office. I can see why - it feels like a nice thing to do; people love the idea of a happy ending. But some of it feels a bit insensitive and pushy to me. People tagging others saying “@Mavis Johnson didn’t you have a cousin called Phillippa? Could this be her?!” or even posting screenshots of people in other groups. “Have you been to her last address? I know you’ve probably written, but maybe they didn’t get the letter…” “Can you make this shareable so I can post it to XYZ group?”

I read these posts and, while I feel for the people involved, I can’t help thinking “But why haven’t they been in touch since 1982?” I can see how more casual friends might simply lose touch - especially years back before social media - but when we’re talking siblings or other family members, it seems more difficult to believe that they just “drifted apart” and forgot to share new addresses. There are also more likely to be other people you could ask if you need contact details.

What if these people simply don’t want to be found, only for well-meaning but oblivious people to start sharing ways to track them down? I always wonder how many people were/are contacted by programmes like Surprise Surprise and Long Lost Family and have to say that they don’t want to be involved. (I remember reading an interview with Davina McCall where she said it happens quite often.) But at least that’s all done behind the scenes. With these posts, I feel like anyone can just wade in saying “I know an Eve Walker who’d be about the right age, lives in Blackley - could this be her?”

Maybe I’m just overthinking it. But is it a bit inappropriate?

Feel guilty about what?
We are both introverted, neither of us now has a living parent and I have no siblings. We don't have close friends.
There is no reason - aside from financial constraints - why we couldn't disappear and live off-grid somewhere in the highlands. Our lifestyle wouldn't really change at all.
But if we chose to leave and tell nobody, we wouldn't appreciate it if people then decided to try to find us.

Fine, if you don’t actually have anyone who would miss you, then fair enough.

Yes, YANBU at all. Could be a general "lost contact, happy to meet up". Or escaped abusive partner (after a lot of hassle). Or fled a stalker. Or anything really.

Any posts with too much person information should be deleted. I would hate for someone to publicly hunt me down on social media - if I wanted them to be part of my life they would be.

Yes, my foster child’s birth mother managed to track her down when she moved to her first flat. It was very traumatic for her

My ex is 'missing'

He walked out of my house,walked down the street and vanished

His family are all over the Internet,pleading for him to get in touch and how they miss him (no doubt they do)

I know him-if you are of no use to him,he will drop you and then your dead to him-they no way he's not seen their pleas

He'll be alive and well somewhere (I have no idea where) but won't want to contact anyone from his 'old' life

If he wanted to,he'd get hold of one of them-for whatever reason,he doesn't want to

It's painful for the family but they need to take him off the pedestal they've put him on
(he was an abusive cocklodger which may cloud my view a bit) and wait until he deems them ok enough to have them back in his life

I sometimes think this about missing teenagers and through my work, sometimes know the backstory when family members post. Sometimes they are running away to be safe FROM the families. I agree with you OP.

Yep. Several times for me; and that was well before Facebook groups. “Well meaning” people sharing info meant there was no stability, in foster parents or teachers or friends, for safety reasons.

I'm so sorry you went through that, it must have been incredibly tough. I hope you've found peace and stability now.

We were told on a safeguarding training course that sometimes when people know their baby is likely to go into foster care, they deliberately give them a unique name to make it easier to track them down.

It's difficult when people repost social media appeals when they don't know the people personally. Even if it is genuinely their parent or close family member, that doesn't mean they should have information on their whereabouts.

@EalingLucy

Not in these cases, no. Some of them had been treated badly by their families in the past, some of their families just couldn’t seem to accept their illness and kept expecting for them to be “cured” (even though with things like schizophrenia, it just doesn’t work that way). Probably some of them don’t want their family to have to see them unwell and think they are better off without them. But quite a lot of the time, they just find it easier to be around other people who understand and accept them, don’t blame them or pressure them to “get well” or to try to interfere and manage their lives for them.

My niece is adopted and my SIL is warned regularly by social services that the birth mum is posting on social media trying to find her and getting “helpful” people to assist her.

My SIL had been willing to send the birth mother a photo every year via social services but this stopped as soon as it was clear the birth mum was looking for her. SIl had only sent one at that stage when niece was 18 months old.
Lucky my niece is now unrecognisable to what she was when the last photo was sent so the chances of birth mother finding her are slim. My niece also unknown to birth mother goes by a different name as the name birth mother gave her was let’s just say unusual (and awful). Social services actually advised my SIL to change it.

I completely understand why someone would want to cut ties with their old life and reinvent themselves somewhere else.

The police and the Sally Army's approach of 'we've found them, they are fine, just wish to be left alone' is absolutely the right & professional one. Casual acquaintances and TV programs should not be getting involved.

On the other hand, there are so many horrific instances (Fred and Rose West etc) that a basic data trail, allowing police to ensure someone is alive, is very important.

If you have someone’s name & age, if you know how you can usually eventually find them if determined enough. There are many records online etc.

There was a post on here a while back where OP asked if anyone had been “missing”. The responses were really eye opening. I remember one lady detailing how she escaped a very abusive family situation and is now living under totally different persona. Not a single person knows, she is single and doesn’t get too involved with people for fear someone will find out.
I think you’re absolutely right, some people don’t need help to be found. They need the protection of continued anonymity.

I agree, OP.

I remember a few years ago when there were such things as local papers, some busy-body had rescued a wedding photo album from the tip. They featured pictures from it in the paper with an article hand-wringing over 'We must return this precious item to its rightful owners - does anyone recognise the people in these photos?'

I felt so sorry for the couple in those photos which were plastered all over the paper for everyone to see. Any sensible person could guess why the album might have been thrown out! I just wish some people had more sensitivity, discretion, judgement etc. to keep their noses out of others' personal business.

That's interesting. I work in a field adjacent to adoption and they now advise adopters in my region to work on the basis that their child will be tracked down by birth parents, because modern technology and social media makes it extremely difficult (impossible, if birth parents are smart enough) to prevent this from happening.

IMO it’s a difficult balance though to know whether someone has disappeared because they wanted to, or whether they have come to harm. And without knowing what happened it’s impossible to find the answer.

Take Andrew Gosden as an example. He disappeared without trace one day, and on here there are regularly posters who say how sorry they feel for his family, and how heartbreaking it must be for them. And maybe that’s true.

But Andrew Gosden bought a one way ticket. So it’s equally possible that he disappeared willingly. Personally I believe that’s the case. But if he’s never found, nobody will ever know.

Same with Claudia Laurence, Nobody knows what happened to her. It’s believed she may have been murdered, but equally before she disappeared she led a very chaotic life. And as she’s never been found it’s impossible to know.

And it’s still possible for the parents to be distraught and want answers because someone can still choose to go missing and for it to not be because of the family they don’t want to now where they are. that family are just collateral damage.

TV shows and social media (and mumsnet) sleuths definitely shouldn’t be involved though.

Agree with you OP.

I have gone no contact with one side of my birth family some years ago for very good reasons. I moved to a different country years ago and they don't have my number or address and I want to keep it that way.

They tried to contact me through social media this year (although I made it clear I wanted no contact from them in the past). I immediately blocked them but it was traumatic to think these people are trying to stalk me on social media. I also make sure that my workplaces never publish my picture on their website or social media.

Basically only it was an official police missing person appeal I would never share someone's details.

I reported some fb posts looking for "missing kids" as there was no police mention at all anywhere.
Pretty sure these were not good people.

Just to addpage admins did take most down

Largely I think Yanbu - people meddling really have no idea if they are making a situation much worse.
But if you had a relative with mental health issues who went missing, it would absolutely ruin your life, not knowing if they were alive or dead, kidnapped and in someone's basement or desperately ill and needing help.
It's not right to just leave those people to suffer. A person with mental illness might not want to be found but they might need finding. Sometimes the best thing is to override a 'want' in order to help a person.

So while I agree that randoms on fb shouldn't just hand out other peoples personal information, it's great that there are agencies who will track missing persons and let families know that person is safe and well.

YANBU.

The trouble is that people confuse "missing relative" appeals with appeals trying to trace old school friends/work colleagues who it is easy to lose contact with and where there's probably zero chance of there being any issues about resuming contact.

I got banned from a group like that once because I pointed out that someone posting, as a member had, the village someone now lived in, her married name and her children's names was completely out of order and potentially unsafe. Apparently that wasn't in the spirit.

I got banned from a similar group for asking a man 'desperate' for information on his sister who had been missing for a week for the police reference number. Apparently it's very unfair to suggest that sightings of apparently missing women should only be given to the authorities rather than random men that they may be hiding from.

People are far too free with other people's information, and safety.

This is what I find so interesting, @ARichtGoodDram. The same people who were quick to assume the worst in your intentions didn’t even consider the possibility that the OP might be anything less than 110% genuine. Why did they jump to the conclusion that you had an negative agenda, but that someone asking for private information could only be doing it for humanitarian reasons?

I had a similar issue (although on a less sensitive topic) a few years ago when someone posted on a local group calling a local nail technician company “thieves” and posting very specific personal information about those involved. I suggested she reconsider the post as, without any proof, it could be libellous. She went mad, insisting that I must somehow be involved with these “thieves” to post that, and ranting for me to look at the follow-up posts and see that “NO ONE agrees with you, NO ONE!!!” I lost my patience at this point and pointed out that a) three people agreeing with her didn’t mean no one agreed with me and b) all it meant was that there were four stupid people on the thread instead of one.

I am technically missing to my family, they know I am alive and well. I went NC with my whole family more than 10 years ago. In that time, I moved several times, changed jobs several times and got married, so changed my name. I didn't give my family the last 2 addresses or my current address. I don't want to be found by them, they are unsafe for me and my children. Unfortunately, they have since been given my address (by whom, I don't know, I think potentially a private detective they gave a sob-story to) and have written to me. That was a shocking day, I haven't responded. We live about 2 hours away, so I am praying that they don't just turn up. I am seriously contemplating moving again.

Please please please don't just assume that the person wants to be found, sometimes they left on purpose.