After a few dark days in the news I welcomed a distraction with a happy ending.

When looking for a case to work I came across a post from David in the UK on a page I follow where people search for the long lost. He was searching for a teacher that was now located in the US. After speaking with him, details revealed that she was teaching in England at his primary school in the 1980’s, he was approximately 8 years old. He estimated she was in her 20’s and had returned back to the US to begin teaching in Michigan. He was able to provide me with a school paper where she had signed her name “Miss *********” because of her age I believe that this would probably be her maiden name. Although it was not a common name, searching for a woman from 37 years ago was going to have some challenges. I began my search using Ancestry Records ($$) for the family name in Michigan. That showed me the name was not as uncommon as thought. I then turned to Classmates.com using high school yearbooks for Michigan in the early 80’s. (this is a free resource, if you ever need instructions on how to use this please reach out to me) I was able to find several students that would have been in that age group by the mid 1980’s. Next I used a combination of announcements in articles in Newspaper.com. ($$) This helped me to obtain possible married names. Then using BeenVerified.com ($$) and FB I was able to narrow it down to three woman. Two were sisters and profiles even showed they were possibly teachers. Going back to BeenVerified.com ($$) I was able to obtain possible phone numbers. After several disconnected and wrong numbers I was able to leave a message for the the first two possibilities. On a return call I was able to determine it was neither of these women had taught in England but their cousin who shared the same maiden name did indeed.

David was so happy that we were able to find his teacher. Miss Christine was pleasantly surprised that she left such an impression on this young boy who was now in his 40’s and a father himself. The two will be connecting on messenger.

Since my first career was as a preschool teacher for 17 years, I know that feeling when a student recognizes you years later and even more heartwarming when they tell you the difference you made in their life, so this search hits it out of the park!