Assuming his real name is the same as the name in his email address, I used the search engine at Manchester Daily News. It took me to the legacy.com website, which did not return any obituary results.
Perhaps an admin has his real name on file. If so, the admin can do some online searching for us if s/he is so inclined. Or perhaps the admin can contact the Manchester papers and explain that [chowder’s real name] is a respected member of our community, and would they be so kind as to see if anything has happened to him?
I didn’t read chowder’s every post, but from what I did read, I like him. It seems strange that he’d disappear in the middle of the UK 2009/2010 Football Season thread. (Ximenean noticed in May that he was missing.)
I found someone of the same name/age on LinkedIn and sent him a message asking him to check in. Of course, it may not be him but fingers crossed. I miss him too.
That chowder stopped posting so suddenly (las post was 18 January 2010), and apparently last logged on the following day, makes me fear the worst. It just doesn’t seem likely that he would drop out of the football thread like that. It’s possible that something happened to divert his attention. Maybe some family emergency with his long-lost sister, or some other thing that has him too busy to post. Or maybe, for reasons of his own, he decided to disappear without explanation. It happens sometimes. If such is the case, I’d hate to violate his privacy.
But I didn’t see any indication that he wanted to disappear. That he did, is worrisome. If you have better access to news resources than just googling newspapers, you might try seeing if you can find an obituary or other news story or public record starting at 19 January. I feel that if the worst has happened, he should be remembered by our community.
I don’t know what I have access to. If anyone with experience in such matters wants to clue me up I would appreciate it. I have the name from chowder’s contact email address, and that’s it.
Next I went to rootsweb and did a search. Nothing under his (assumed) name.
The Manchester Archives have about ten links to places where death information might be found, but I haven’t checked them all.
Of course the name in the email address might be a pseudonym, or else the surname may be a phonetical abbreviation. If I had access to obituaries from the general timeframe, I could browse them for his birth date, which is given in his profile. I assume that the admins have a record of his actual name, and can confirm whether the one in his address is it. It’s been a while since I’ve registered, so I don’t remember if we had to give our real names. I don’t know if they keep the name information from credit cards or PayPal (assuming chowder had a paid membership at one time – and I know they don’t keep the numbers), but they might be able to track him if they have the correct name.
If I ever disappear, I hope someone would look for me.
To what purpose? I mean, nobody’s going to notice that I’m missing from a message board for the crucial 15 minutes that I’m slumped in my computer chair dying, and if some months later someone finds an obituary for Frank -----, what good does that do either of us?