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With a DNA test you would have matches among 2nd and 3rd cousins. People that may have heard the story about the 2-year-old that lost her parents in an accident, and you would be able to piece things together bit by bit. A little from one and a little from another.
You talk about a PI when DNA is only $59 for the next week. How do you think a PI would find people?
How did you find her?
That's all true.
Could also work if you apply the same logic to the oldest people in Dauphin Island. Its not a big place...fewer than a 1000 residents in 1990.
Call the police station, tell them your story and see if they have any ideas on how to find someone who knows her. If they have a detective, ask to speak to that person.
This all sounds super fishy and strange. Off the grid for almost 60 years?
Can't remember her Uncle's name (he died when she was in the 9th grade...she would have been a teenager by then)
How could she live or work without a social security card or birth certificate?
^Doing a quick search I found a couple of Jana Jordans born in 1964.
A couple of Jana Jurdan's records but the birth date doesn't seem to match.
Your best bet would be a DNA test....even if she doesn't have any close relatives out there, she has some distant cousins, believe me....and with that you can do a bit of digging and find out more about her.
I have thousands of dna matches on Ancestry, and even if you think she doesn't have any family...she will have some distant relatives out there and you should find hundreds of matches (at the very least dozens).
Once you figure out who they are, you know who she is.
Last edited by Crazee Cat Lady; 08-29-2023 at 05:31 PM..
She has a slight mental disorder of some type and definitely a memory problem. She suffered a head injury in the car crash, but the doctors could not find any permanent injuries. She has no police record, so she is not running from the law. I do not think dna would turn up anything and I am tire of going down rabbit holes. She has no siblings and the rest of her family was deceased before there were dna test. I think a good PI could track it all down if we can afford one.
DNA is for sure worth trying. Surely, one or both parents had at least a few other relatives and maybe one of them or their children has entered a database.
Maybe the police or sheriff could persuade the school to release her records. School has no right to make this harder for her.
I would talk to police, sheriff, local ministers, town clerks and teachers. Post flyers on local telephone poles and windshields, etc. Someone somewhere has a clue. I've never been to that area, but it sounds like small town or rural where most people know each other to some degree.
Go to the nearest TV stations and see if they could assign a reporter to help publicize the search. I've see such on TV news before.
I'm not saying this in a sinister way, but I agree something doesn't add up. Start with the present and work backwards. Write down the timeline as she remembers it.
She's been "off the grid" for 60 years, yet it's a friend you welcome in your home, how did that come to be? What leads you to believe she's trustworthy?
Has she ever had a job or a driver's license? How did she get it?
What happened to her social security survivor benefits?
The uncle is a half brother to the mother or father, that's still a link. Find his obituary.
How does she know her parents were killed when she was 2, but can't remember her uncle when she was in grade 9?
Is there a local library where she can find a newspaper article about the crash? The obituary of her parents? In my experience library staff are super helpful, and I'd start with the library. You may find year books, phone books, city directories, things that are not going to be scanned into any of the genealogy websites.
I get it, you have nothing to go on, but you need something to start piecing together her life. It's not as simple as calling up the hospital, town clerk, etc and saying "I need a copy of "x" certificate". You're going to have to put in work.
Check with the county historical society for recommendations on genealogists who specialize in local families. Almost every county, especially in the South, has local people who are very interested in and diligent about researching families who lived in or settled the area. Often they'll share knowledge without charge.
Or find the mystery intriguing and want to look into it for their own curiosity.
She has a slight mental disorder of some type and definitely a memory problem. She suffered a head injury in the car crash, but the doctors could not find any permanent injuries. She has no police record, so she is not running from the law. I do not think dna would turn up anything and I am tire of going down rabbit holes. She has no siblings and the rest of her family was deceased before there were dna test. I think a good PI could track it all down if we can afford one.
I had an unknown relative from Poland contact me through a DNA match from 23andMe. He had all kinds of information about my heritage and photos I had never seen. My DNA had closely matched a woman in her 90’s who turned out to be a close relative of my paternal grandfather. Don’t discount the power of DNA!
She is spelling the name correctly. Jordan is the modern spelling for Jurdan. Her family never changed the spelling. We have tried all of the above. We are applying for her parents marriage certificate. That will give us the mother's maiden name and we can then request a birth certificate.
Do the DNA test, it is the best way to find leads.
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