The Early days
PathFinders was started in 1993 by myself, Robert Boynton.
Before I embarked on this venture, I worked as a Power Engineer in Calgary, Alberta Canada at the Petro-Canada Center. Due to cutbacks affecting the Oil and Gas Industry, I was laid off in early 1991. Perhaps it was a little bit fateful, because just prior to being laid off, I had read every PI book in the Calgary Public Library and had learned about Unclaimed Bank Balances and how to make my fortune.
I actually solved some of these bank account cases, but knowing little or nothing about business or legal documentation, I approached a PI office and they gladly took me in for, what seems now, an exorbitant commission. This PI firm very quickly realized that I was a natural at locating people and soon gave me responsibility for their entire skip tracing. Skip tracing is tracking down bad debtors. It is the kind of situation where a bank or a loan company wants to find someone who is not making perhaps, their car or other loan payment. The client usually provides you with a lot about the skip. The skip is avoiding their responsibilities and they are in hiding. I do not mind stating that, while I was very good at this type of work, I did not care for it, and to this day, I do not care for tracking down any person without a positive reason for doing so.
The skills I learned from skip tracing have come in very handy; the reason is simple. Although most of my work is historical, I always have to move forward in time to find the descendant or heir. Today, many people are staying out of the public eye to avoid the telemarketers and annoying interruptions. Therefore, many people have unlisted and/or cell phone numbers. In much of the work I perform now, I trace a family forward in time to find that the present generation has disappeared. It helps to have the skills to make them reappear.
One day, while at this particular PI firm, I received a case from an elderly gentleman from Ontario, who wanted to find a lady he had met in Calgary in 1942 during his war service here. There was a snag. All he remembered was her first name and the street she had lived on. Well, this started the brain cells shifting and I solved the case. Unfortunately, the lady had died fairly young in 1986. I put this gentleman in touch with this ladys surviving husband, very much a gentleman himself.
This was a turning point for me. I really loved this case and the challenges it presented. In skip tracing I knew everything about the person. In this case, I had to discover who the person was and what happened to them.
The time had come for me to start on my own!
On my Own
On my own, I really wanted to work for the Office of the Public Trustee. My impression was that this would be the most challenging work and therefore, the most rewarding. It was not easy, but eventually I gained and still have the confidence of the Office of the Public Trustee in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I will be forever grateful for this.
Before I received any cases from them, I did receive a case from a lady who wanted to find her mother. This was not an adoption case but one where her mother had left the family fold in 1952, never to be heard from again. My client provided me with what I thought, were numerous leads concerning Calgary jobs and addresses for her mom. Apparently they were all false. In rethinking this case, I asked for and acquired my clients birth certificate. Her mother was not born in Calgary but in the Crows Nest Pass area of Alberta. I checked out everything I could think of including local histories, homestead records, directories, etc. but nothing secured a lead. Finally, I checked out some very old school records for that area. The school records of my clients mother were found in a small town and in one year I came across something miraculous. Loose in these old school records was a school transfer document for my clients mother which stated where my client's mother was transferred to. I found out where she had moved to as a child.
I found an old timer in that area to where my clients mothers family had moved, who remembered the family and, in fact, knew where this ladys moms friend was. The friend had not heard from my clients mom, but did remember the last name of the man she married. This ended up being an extremely rare name. But this was 1993 and phone CDs were available. I sat down and searched every phone directory in Alberta and every individual region that had a separate directory. In a little hamlet southeast of Leduc, I found the listing for this man and his wife, my clients mother.
I was informed later that my client never wrote to her mother, but instead took the trip up to her home and knocked on her door where they had a very happy reunion like no other.