In 1997 Redditor inmynothing’s mother passed away suddenly of a brain aneurysm. He was nine years old. Now at 23 he can vaguely remember his mother’s face. He has “no recollection of her voice.”
And he’d lost almost all records of her existence. That was — until he reached out to Reddit for help.
“Reddit, my mom died when I was 9 and I can’t find her obituary. Can you help?” he wrote on AskReddit. He’d been looking for the obituary for the past four years, he told the Daily Dot.
Within hours, redditors had helped him locate his mother’s Ohio death record.
They’d even dug up her Social Security number using services like Ancestry.com and the Social Security Death Index, allowing them to dig up information about her family.
With the Social Security information, inmynothing has found a woman he believes is his mother’s sister. He’s sent her a message on Facebook. We’ll keep you posted on what happens with that.
inmynothing, a college student in Indiana, said he never expected this kind of response.
“I cannot express how overwhelmed I have been by this hospitality,” inmynothing wrote in a message to the Daily Dot.
But he’s not finished. He still wants to find that obituary. Redditors gave him tips on which local libraries to search for the newspapers. Some have offered to drive to Ohio themselves to find a copy.
And if that doesn’t work, inmynothing says he going contact local funeral homes.
Meanwhile, inmynothing’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed. Earlier this morning, redditor dreadful05 asked the community for help finding a picture of his deceased father.
Just a few hours later, it looks like a redditor has already found one.
Photo by Aaron of NEPA