New Zealand Mystery Revisited

While I planned to write a second installment for the photo featured in last week’s blog posting, I’ll postpone it a week due to an email I received. It was a call for help.

In October 2000 (that’s seven and a half years ago), I wrote about this haunting photograph of a woman in mourning in New Zealand Mystery.

Now someone e-mailed me trying to contact Dafanie Goldsmith, the owner of the picture.

Since I’ve had several computer crashes since 2000, I no longer have Goldsmith’s contact information. The person who e-mailed me has genealogical data on one of Goldsmith’s lines and would really like to find her.

In an attempt to resolve this “missing person” issue, I googled Goldsmith and discovered she’s a high profile genealogist.

• Family Tree Magazine once even named her Web site a site of week.
• A newspaper in Lancashire wrote a story about Goldsmith’s search for her family in 1999.
• She also exists in countless message board postings. I found them by Googling her name. (If you ever wondered whether you’re leaving a Web trail behind, try searching on your name in a search engine.)

Using the clues, I’ve sent Goldsmith e-mails using addresses used in her postings and even joined a New Zealand social networking site to send her a private message. No results. As a last resort, I’m hoping she still reads this column.

Dafanie, if you’re out there please send me an email. The other researcher might just be able to solve one of your brick walls.