Since meeting 21 years ago while reporting on a Wellington murder trial for rival newspapers, friends Deb Morris and Dr Fran Tyler have turned their love of solving mysteries into a business.
Using their investigative skills and a “lifetime of knowing where to look”, the journalists-turned- genealogists have traced hundreds of lost family members, and beneficiaries of wills and estates.
But it was while unravelling the truth about their own family heritage that the pair uncovered a surprising plot twist – they’re actually related too! “In fact, we like to say we are not related by blood, we’re related by murder,” laughs Fran, 55.
“I was writing my family history up when I came across a woman’s name that I recognised as the same person in Deb’s family tree,” she explains.
The story goes that back in 1922, Fran’s great-aunt was murdered in Palmerston North. It became a well-publicised case at the time.
“She was murdered by a chap who had returned from World War I with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was unrecognised in those days.
“She was married and had a daughter. Her husband then remarried twice, and the second time he married was with Deb’s great-aunt. We couldn’t believe we had that connection.”
When it comes to tracking people down, the pair (who point out they’re not private investigators), employ various methods, with often only the tiniest bit of information to start with – usually just a name.
They believe their skills lie in knowing what public information and specific databases exist, as well as the tricks to using those databases to the maximum advantage.
And while a lot of New Zealanders can almost be anonymous living in Australia due to its stricter privacy laws, Fran and Deb have had success finding missing people there too.
“A law firm asked us to look for a gentleman who had been missing since the 1980s and had been left a gift in his late parents’ will,” recalls Deb, 53. “He had gone to Australia and the family had lost track of him.
“The family had contacted Interpol and tried to track him down with no success. We knew he was elderly and that he was living in a certain city in Australia. So we worked on the basis that he was either going to be dead or in aged care.
“We tried him on all the Australian databases and the only place we found him was on a register of monies owed. That gave us a location.”
The duo eventually ended up contacting the equivalent of the Australian social welfare department, who wouldn’t allow information to be shared.
“However, we said, ‘Can you ask him to contact us?’ We heard nothing for about two months before we received an email from social welfare asking to make contact with the law firm who had hired us.
“So we did find him in the end – he was living in care and his siblings were keen to contact him. It was a hugely satisfying case.”
Information gathering comes easy to these longtime reporters.
Due to the recent popularity of television shows that aim to reunite missing loved ones, Fran and Deb have also seen a surge in people searching for birth parents and needing help deciphering DNA results.
Fran says in New Zealand it can be difficult for people to find their birth parents by applying for files through legitimate sources.
“It’s almost set up for the person to fail because in order to get your records from Oranga Tamariki, you have to prove that all of the parties are deceased. But how do you do that if you don’t know
who the parties are?
“This is where DNA testing is a good first point-of-call,” she shares.
“And it may not get you the main person you’re looking for, but it may lead you to a relative and from that person, another relative and you’re able to start building a family tree.
“We recommend using [the genealogy platform] Ancestry,” she says, “because then you can download your DNA from its site and upload it to other genealogy databases, but you can’t do it vice versa. So it gives you many more options.”
Their other advice for would-be family detectives is not to take what you see on online genealogy sites as gospel.
“There are far too many people out there who think, ‘Oh, that looks right,’ and chuck it out there, but it’s wrong – they’re not in fact related to King George VI,” says Fran, who has traced some branches of her family back to the 1600s.
“Always make sure you can verify the information outside of that family tree.”
And their top tip?
“Make a will and keep it up-to-date,” adds Deb. “More people are lost through a lack of wills than probably anything else.”
For more information, visit genealogyinvestigations.co.nz
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