NEW Unclaimed who are they and what we do!

raine1212

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Let me see if I can explain unclaimed. Sometimes when people die their name is known but the ME or whoever is unable to locate any family. So, the person becomes an unclaimed. The name is posted on a website and we try to match it to a living relative mostly using genealogy records.

1.) Sometimes the family or one member of the family knows but refuses for whatever reason (financial or because of hard feelings) refuses to claim the body.

2.) Sometimes it is a homeless or street person. They may have lost touch with family years ago. The family may or may not be looking for them. Raine had a case of a mother who lost touch with her daughter 10 years before. We traced the family and contact was made with the mother who was heartbroken to find out her daughter was dead, but relieved to know she knew what had happened to her.

3.) Sometimes it is someone who dies in a group home or other institution who lost touch with their family. We had a case like this recently--A man who had been living in a group home died of cancer. No family known. We found the sister who lost track of her brother when they moved him from the state hospital and the hospital lost his records. She was also sad to hear of his death, but glad to know what happened to her brother.

4.) Sometimes the ID and name that the unclaimed gave is a fake one. These are very hard cases. But sometimes we figure it out.

5.) Sometimes the person is elderly and dies alone.

6.) Sometimes the only living relative is a very distant relationship. Takes a good bit of genealogy work to figure these out. For one lady, it was a third cousin.

7.) Family trees - sometimes whoever is doing the family's genealogy may find the ssdi (social security death index) and places it in the family tree. Sometimes this is a distant relationship. Sometimes it is close family. We try to figure out how close the relationship is to the owner of the tree (on ancestry) and see if we can determine if close family knows.

8.) And sadly, sometimes the records are incomplete, the family knows. And may have claimed the body. Maybe listed the person as deceased in a more recent obituary, but the ME's file did not get updated.

So, that is unclaimed. Usually quite a challenge to unravel.

Raine and I both believe that every person deserves at least for their family to know what happened to them, a chance to go home to their family, and the family deserves to know what happened to their family member.

Hope that helps and maybe inspires you to work some unclaimed cases. We can always use the help!

Thanks NM for the help. Your sidekick!
 
How are matches verified? Does whoever is in charge of a case let us know that the info we gave allowed them to contact someone who was indeed family?
 
What is the difference between "Match" and "Resolved"?
 
I would also like to help with the unclaimed.

My sister is a Funeral Director in South Texas and has told me of countless unclaimed persons most likely undocumented that she has had to pick up. So I would also like to submit possible cases or help others like her in this search.
 
I was just looking at namus unclaimed. Over 1300 listed from just this year, so many in the Bronx too.

It's utterly heartbreaking


Yes I noticed the same. I was looking at all of the NYC ones. So many unclaimed after Covid. I really believe they are all mostly from the nursing homes but the only info they list a Borough and nothing else. It’s truly heartbreaking. There are so many from 2020 and 2021 so so many.

i would actually love to start listing the NYC ones but I don’t even know where to start my god.
 
Although I've been on WS a couple of years and have used NamUs a good bit, I only recently took a look at the Unclaimed database at NamUs. Searching NC I found that 33 of 39 are from Forsyth County (Winston-Salem). Does anybody know why there are so many in the one county? FWIW the state Medical Examiner's office is in Raleigh, but I think most of the actual ME exams are done in Chapel Hill at the UNC School of Medicine.

Looking at their circumstances, some of them were from medical facilities in Forsyth Co., but others were found in residences or even parking lots. FWIW all but one are from 2021 and later. Maybe Forsyth Co. has trouble updating their database? A number of the entries list tattoos, so maybe some of these are actually unidentified persons living under alleged names but were listed at NamUs as unclaimed. Any suggestions here?
 
Yes I noticed the same. I was looking at all of the NYC ones. So many unclaimed after Covid. I really believe they are all mostly from the nursing homes but the only info they list a Borough and nothing else. It’s truly heartbreaking. There are so many from 2020 and 2021 so so many.

i would actually love to start listing the NYC ones but I don’t even know where to start my god.
It seems like a lot of the New York unclaimed cases have been getting removed recently.
 
Oh really? Thanks for this info…sogreat to hear!!
I hav not checked unclaimed in a while.. I should browned through it!
Check New York resolved and open cases and you will see that a lot have been removed recently.
 
Check New York resolved and open cases and you will see that a lot have been removed recently.
Ok I think Iam losing it… I can’t find the New York Resolved or Open cases on Namus. Can you let me know where you saw them? Thank you so much.
 
Last edited:
Ok I think Iam losing it… I can’t find the New York Resolved or Open cases on Namus. Can you let me know where you saw them? Thank you so much.
Just scroll down on the namus homepage where it says the success of namus and click on where it’s says all states and territories to find the state your looking for.
 

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