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On Television |
 TROY DUNN "THE LOCATOR" |
A new TV show that traces
the people you can't find
By DONNA J. PLESH
of TheColumnists.com
“I think half the world’s looking for the other half.” That’s what Troy Dunn thinks and he should know since he and his team have found 40,000 “un-findable” men, women and children in 18 years of locating people.
Now Dunn is showcasing his talents on the
small screen in the new 10-part WE series “The Locator.”
The show’s setup is simple: someone contacts Dunn for help
in finding a special person from their past. It could be a mother,
a father, a son, a daughter, other relative or a close friend
they have not been able to find for years. If Dunn takes the
case, he and his team swing into action and begin the research
that will help them locate the person. When the person is found,
and if all involved agree, Dunn arranges a meeting between the
parties.
And, yes, it can be a tearjerker to watch some of the reunions.
Some of Dunn’s cases in the series include: A birth mother who wants to be reunited with her identical twin sons, an adopted daughter wants to meet her birth mother, a daughter wants to find her father, and a brother wants to be reunited with his sisters who were separated from him in foster care.
Making a living finding people is not your everyday job. Dunn got started when he helped his mother, who was adopted, find her birth mother and family. “I grew up listening to her talk about her desire to find her birth family. She searched for at least 17 years of my life ...aggressively searching... finding information and not finding the person,” said Dunn in an interview.
Helping his mom, Dunn found a man who had been adopted and who had found his mother. That man in turn helped Dunn gather information and they were able to find Dunn’s mom’s birth mother. But as is sometimes the case, her birth mother rejected her, said Dunn. It happens, he adds, but he feels the experience gave his mother some closure. And it gave Dunn the idea for his business and his mom became his first employe.
Dunn adds that his mom’s potential reunion didn’t work out and not all of them do. “I would say over 97 percent of the reunions I’ve done have been positive, but there are occasions where people don’t want to be found, but you don’t know until you ask them,” says Dunn.
Over the years Dunn has helped make reunions possible on TV talk and daytime shows in the U.S. and overseas. He’s a former private investigator, radio host, motivational speaker on finance and personal happiness and author.
In 2002 Dunn sold his business, which included a network of 1,800 investigators, to ancestry.com. Now, says Dunn, “it has become more of my philanthropical experience ... giving back... searching for families who before couldn’t use our services.”
(In case you're wondering--and I was--Dunn
said in the early days of his business
finding someone could have cost as much as $1,400.)
©2008 by Donna J. Plesh. The photo is courtesy of the Troy Dunn website. This column first posted Aug. 25, 2008.
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