Finders, not keepers

Two local men seek out historical documents and work hard to return them to their rightful owners

By Elena Boryczka

The Times, Jan 11, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

JONATHAN HOUSE / THE TIMES

Phil Hirl, left, and David Scott are collectors and researchers who spend their spare time finding long-lost documents and photographs and then tracking down family members who would want to keep the items.

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Phil Hirl and David Scott are two men on a mission.

The first part of their mission is to buy old pictures, keepsakes and mementos at second-hand shops and garage sales. The second part is to find a relative and get the item into the hands of that person.

Why?

Simply because they want to.

Hirl said he first got into the habit of what he calls “family looking” when he retired and decided to find out about his great-great grandparents. In doing so, he became familiar with the methods used on genealogy Web sites and some of the tactics of locating long-lost family members.

He put this knowledge to use when he came across a posting on one of the Web site message boards asking for help in locating the family of some people named in an old photo. Hirl soon began tracking down the descendants of the people in the picture, only to find that they were relatives of his second cousin. After getting the photo sent off to a very appreciative recipient, Hirl said he was hooked.

“So I thought, ‘Well, that’s fun. I think I’ll do it again,’” he said. “So I go around to these secondhand stores and buy old photos and try to find families.”

Chicago connection

For Pam Bertrand, being contacted by Bull Mountain resident Hirl was unexpected, to say the least. The manufacturer’s rep for the home décor industry from Chicago said she received an e-mail in October from Hirl saying he had seen a posting she left on an ancestry site regarding Daniel and Sarah Bertran in 2001. He wanted to know if she ever found out if she was related to them because he had an original marriage certificate that he wanted to get into the hands of a descendant.

Bertrand responded by telling Hirl that the couple was her husband’s great-great grandparents but said she didn’t think he believed her because of the different spelling of the name. He commented that there was no ‘D’ on the Bertran name, saying, “I want to be sure it goes to someone in their line”; Bertrand understood this and was pleased with Hirl’s determination to get the item to the correct person.

“I appreciate his thoroughness and need for accuracy,” she said.

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