Persons Missing Under New Management While this site started out catering to Aus and NZ clientele, interest and use of the site has expanded greatly. To better server this global community, Genealogy Today has taken the reigns of the site effective December 2003. In addition to a minor facelift, the search engine has been replaced and is integrated with other databases at Genealogy Today, improving the visibility of ad (listings) in the Missing Persons Register. All login/password information has been preserved. In addition, all members may use the same login/password at Genealogy Today to take advantage of their free research tools. Passing the Torch At one time or another, like myself, you were seeking a loved-one, a family member, a lost love, an old friend, or chasing your family's roots, or looking for a high school or veterans reunion. I founded the beginnings of the Missing Persons Register in 1997, but it did not become a solid structure with incoming ads until early 1999. Since then there have been over 12,000 adverts placed and many people have been found. I found my adult daughter in 1998, but we are yet to meet; and Chris found his adult son in 2000, and met him in 2002. I also found about five of the twenty friends I was searching for, including a girl I went to school with and I had lost touch with for over 20 years. It's just so wonderful to see and know her all over again. I hope those still searching don't ever give up and keep looking. In 1967, sociologist Stanley Milgram created what is known as the "small world phenomenon," the idea that every person is connected by a chain of six people at most. The John Guare play and movie adaptation "Six Degrees of Separation", posits we are all connected by six or fewer stages of circumstance or acquaintance. Through just six intermediaries, you could be linked to millions of others. http://smallworld.columbia.edu/ Sociologists estimate that we each typically have around 300 or so acquaintances - people we're on first-name terms with. That suggests we're just one hand-shake away from 300 people, two away from 90,000, three away from 27 million and so on. So make sure you keep yourself 'out there' you never know who you may find, or who may just find you! From January 2004, you will have a new Webmaster and site owner who will take the site forward and develop it ways I could only dream of, but could never afford. You will receive a welcome message from her, with this note from me attached. Should you need any information or help, contact the Webmaster, she will contact me if it is necessary. Best Wishes for your future, Melissa BEE Blood Sweat and Tears This site began as a small section called "Where Are You?" off the Aus Personals website in 1997, and got its own domain at http://missing.personals.net.au in 1999. This site (and sub-section) had no age limit, no bias, no judgmental services and NO FEES! An open door service to help people find each other, irrespective of who or where they reside. This was in a climate where free services were all going under and EVERYBODY was charging a fee-for-service. Five years later, we are still the ONLY SITE ON THE NET that offers all these same services for FREE. The aus.personals site exploded in size and traffic and soon needed its own domain/s. It was important to separate teens from adults, build specific location sites and separate Missing from the personal ads stream, so "Where Are You?" graduated to its own space (a subdomain off The Personals Network) at http://missing.personals.net.au in 1999. While in its new home, it also changed it's from 'Where are You?' to; 'The Australian & New Zealand Missing Persons Register' with a major focus on Australia FIRST and SECONDLY New Zealand. This site has resided at the same domain for three years now,and was welcomed enthusiastically by people from Australia & New Zealand clearly filling the need for such a service. At the time there was not one Missing Persons, find-a-friend or Reunion site in Australia or New Zealand, when we began in 1997, nor in 1998 or 1999. Despite the fact it is (and was) clearly labelled Australian, with a map of Australia, and getting about 100 queries about Missing Persons every day, in 2000, a fellow Australian started up similar site, helped themselves to our material and promoted its missing persons services in Brisbane Newspapers (Michelle Collins in The Sunday Mail published items on the other service several times in 2000 and 2001) Ironically I had continually asked Michelle and The Sunday Mail (for more than 3 years) to run something about TPN or The Missing Persons Register and been ignored. About 6 months later Michelle finally made a (very) small mention of our site, cut and pasted from one of the many emails I had sent asking why we were being discriminated against and why all missing persons sites didn't have equal opportunity, particularly as ours was a free community service. In the Sunday Mail 22nd October 2000, the site owner was quoted as saying "I spent 10 years with the Australian Federal Police and I've tried to locate a few missing persons in my time." who went on to say he was unable to find his own step-brother. He went on to claim "There was absolutely no Australian Internet site that could help, so I decided to build one." This same claim was even published on his website. He obviously never searched for, found or even investigated the possibility there even was any other site. Our site had been operational for THREE YEARS and I had helped locate over 40 people, we had a massive amount of resources, and visitors and some 600+ adholders. This site was listed on every search engine and a basic websearch for 'missing and Australia' brought our site up in the Top 5 and Top 10 in over thirty popularly used search engines. I emailed him directly and the paper, acquainted them with the facts, and recieved no response from either. He also later amended his claim on his site that there was NO site (as published in the paper) to read; "There was no Australian Internet site that combined all types of reunions into one, so I decided to build one myself, hoping to help other people on the way as well". The next time I visited his site, I found he had not only been to our website he had helped himself to our original Missing Persons graphics, that Chris and I had spend hours designing! The condition of using this graphic was clearly spelt out on the links page, where the graphic was located. That we had to be informed of it's use and it was required to be linked back to us. I asked him why we hadn't been informed. I asked that he either remove it or link to us. I got no response. I wrote again, this time I informed the ex-policeman that he was breaking Copyright law and did NOT have our permission to have our graphics on his website and they were to be immediately linked or removed, or we may be forced to take the matter further. Five days later the graphic was gone. By mid 1999, we started getting ads from all over the world, so we became more broadly known as; 'The Missing Persons Register' A full and thorough search of the internet using sophisticated searching tools, showed clearly no other site on the internet was using that same name, so it became our name, though another site later made claims to the contrary. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I am flabbergasted that people will take things way beyond what is considered reasonable and fair behaviour. As an Aussie I believe strongly in being given a fair go! Aussie Aussie Aussie!! Oi Oi Oi !! Time for Change On 10th August 2001, The Missing Persons Register had been operational for four years. At that time, the register contained over 2,000 people. In January 2002, The Missing Persons Register bought its own domain set, 'personsmissing' to be a separate entity from the personals subdomains, taking the focus off personals, and putting it on persons. On 10th August 2002 The Missing Persons Register will be FIVE YEARS OLD. No other site that caters for the missing in Australia has been going that long. No other site offers these services for free. This FREE site, is provided as a Community Service by The Personals Network, and helps people find others whether they are lost, missing, or simply out of touch. You can try to track lost sweethearts, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, classmates etc. More details on all this on the site tour. That means that for YOU the user, you do not have to pay to use these services. While this is a FREE service to you, it isn't to us. It costs us a lot of (Australian) money to host, edit, research, reply to mail, help people search. The Australian Dollar is worth about US$0.50 We are the only totally free Missing Persons site. We hope to attract people to advertise their products and services with us, so we can keep it free. But we will need your help to do that. That means helping promote this site, telling people about it, linking it. We hope all the users of this site will check out these ads, and maybe even use the services or product if it appeals to you. It is intended that YOU as the ad placer do as much searching for (your missing person) as you can. Adding someone to our register means that someone else who may know the person you seek may know of them, and contact you directly. As far fetched as that may seem, it has happened on many many occasions. As this register gets bigger and bigger, the ability to MATCH the lost with the seeker will increase exponentially. The Founders Melissa BEE is the creator of the aus.personals 'people-seeking-people' system. Together with Chris Heart, they co-created and developed The Personals Network based on her ideas. Currently Melissa is involved with other projects while Chris manages TPN on his own. Melissa is the webmaster, researcher, writer, and creator of graphics on this site. All content here is Copyright to Melissa BEE & HunnyBee Productions. All programming is Copyright to Chris. Melissa has had heartbreaking, but fruitful searches for her (25 yr old) daughter, in 1998, (adopted out in 1977) and for her missing father who she had not seen since she was 4 years of age. She found her father in 1983, just 3 months after he had died. Chris HEART is the programmer of the Missing Persons Register ads database, and the Events & Reunions database and the guestbook. Chris also managed to find his (24 yr old) son, in 1999, who had been abducted as a 18mth old baby by the child's mother in 1980. What We Do We provide this facility as a forum to place ads and information. We provide a database for you to enter, edit or delete information about persons who you consider to be lost or 'missing'. We provide information about missing person and searching services and features about what they DO. This information comes from the services themselves. We are not responsible for any errors of fact, that these services may make, or claim. From time to time we conduct physical web searches to see if we can 'find' anyone who is missing. This is not a routine task, and it is time consuming and expensive. We refer people onto appropriate agencies and search services in their area, who may further assist with their inquires. We attempt to liaise with Police and other Searching Services (but have been either ignored or abused to date, which is sad.) We work with CrimeNet in chasing up leads, photos and other information 'while the iron is hot' to get media releases and info out to the public to assist in finding people lost and publicly reported missing. We work with Australian & New Zealand Media (in August 2001 with New Zealand Television) to draw public attention to those lost and missing, so they are not forgotten. We work with Australian and New Zealand journalists, writers, lecturers and detectives to continually improve our services. We hope in time to also add a Newsletter to our services. We understand the pain and anguish families go through not knowing where their loved ones ARE, and whether they are safe, and well - or even ALIVE. The pain of NOT KNOWING is incredible. We understand the need of being able to find people, to have CLOSURE to assist with the grieving process. We hope in time to be able to refer people to more assisting services. On This Site There are no fees, no charges, no word limit (well, its very reasonable!) and you can put up photographs for free. Just email or post them to us. Send a SAE for the photo's return. You can find this site by just asking a search engine for 'australia' There are lots of links and information on seeking services and their roles such as The National Missing Persons Unit, a big Genealogy Section, a big Adoption Info section and an excellent Search Tools Section. There are articles on how to conduct online searches and other great stuff for local and international searches. This FREE site primarily currently caters for persons seeking others in Australia and New Zealand. This is being extended to other countries. Resources on this site are all free, however you may find links of some sites may go to pay or fee based service sites. It is our aim that you are able to locate the resources you need, and the people you seek easily, and for the least possible cost. To place an ad, go to the ads page and follow the links to the database.

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