If you know of anyone who served in Korea and did not return, please visit http://www.koreanwar.org. You can search by last name, state or service. Please pass on to other lists. I bet we can find a lot of the guys or at least give a few clues! REVERSE GENEALOGY TO FIND FAMILIES OF KOREAN WAR SOLDIERS by Megan Smolenyak [email protected] Recently I had the thrill of finding the 100-year-old mother of one of "my" soldiers alive and hoping for word of her son. She was born at the turn of the 20th century and had lost her son at the midpoint (the sad date of 2 November 1950 is still firmly engrained in the family's collective memory), but she never lost hope that she would at least learn what had become of him or be able to give him a proper burial. Now, she may finally get her wish. Half a century after the conflict, there are still approximately 8,100 servicemen unaccounted for from the Korean War. Of these, 6,318 served in the US Army. The Repatriation and Family Affairs Division is responsible for locating and reestablishing communications with the families of these soldiers, and I am fortunate enough to be one of the genealogists to help them with this undertaking. When a family is located, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) testing is used in an attempt to make an identification, and when a match occurs, the soldier can finally be put to rest with full military honors. The work is often challenging, given that the soldiers' files generally have rather limited family information. In most cases, they include the names of a parent and perhaps another relative. Not surprisingly, many of these kinfolk have passed away over the last 50 years. Others have left the area where the family lived around 1950. Since mtDNA testing requires following the soldier's maternal line, the researcher also has to deal with several generations of name changes for the women in the family. By way of example, one case of a soldier from Illinois resulted in six DNA-eligible people with five different surnames (none of them the same as the soldier) now living in Illinois, California, Arizona, and Oregon. Because of the need to work from the past to the present and the emphasis on maternal lines, I refer to this kind of research as "reverse genealogy." Because of the intensive nature of "reverse" genealogy, I get to know these families quite well over time -- sometimes learning more than they know about their own extended clan -- and I consequently develop a sense of connection to "my" soldiers. After having resolved more than 40 cases, I am still elated each time I make contact with a family for the first time. Even so, there are still more than 4,000 soldiers whose families have not yet been located and just maybe you hold the key to one or two of these. If you know of anyone who served in Korea and did not return, please visit http://www.koreanwar.org . On this site, you can search for any soldier by his name. Once you locate him, you can leave a remembrance. By doing so -- and providing any details you can recall about the soldier's family, or at least your own contact information for follow-up -- may help solve a case. The tiniest tidbit -- an old address, a middle initial, the soldier's school -- can be that vital, missing clue. If you see a "DNA" tag next to the soldier's name, this means that this family is actively being sought at this moment. If it is, it is even more urgent for you to leave a remembrance or contact the US Army directly at 1-800-892-2490. Together, we can honor the memories of these soldiers and bring some long-awaited resolution to their families. Written by Megan Smolenyak [email protected] Previously published by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, Missing Links, Vol. 6, No. 18, 2 May 2001. RootsWeb: http://www.rootsweb.com/ ............................................ Tom Cloud <[email protected]>