Ads for Missing Relatives

Missing person ads were placed in newspapers by relatives when they were trying to locate a family member. When you see one of these ads, you can't help but wonder if they ever got the information they hoped for.

Here is one placed in a Pennsylvania newspaper by Sarah Bliss Whiteway of Devon, England, who was searching for her brother, William Bliss, in the United States:

The Wilkes-Barre Record, January 19, 1909

This next ad was looking for a traveling salesman from Pittsburgh, John Franklin Llewellyn, who disappeared four years earlier. There are two family trees on Ancestry.com that have no additional information about him after 1900, so it's possible he was was never found.

Harrisburg Daily Independent, March 17, 1906

Michael Kundratouch disappeared on a Sunday in 1921, and the ad below was placed in the newspaper on Friday of that same week. I found his Pennsylvania death certificate on Ancestry.com, so at least his family found out what happened, although it was not good news. The death record for "Mike Kundratouich" indicates that he was a coal miner from Russia, and it looks like his body was found on March 16, 1922, since that's the date the deputy coroner viewed the body. Cause of death was "Drowned, probably accidental, found in Monongahela river at Coal Bluff."

The Daily Republican (Monongahela, Pennsylvania), December 9, 1921

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