Remembering the Unclaimed Dead (and two requests for help)

What happens to these unclaimed remains?

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A few weeks ago on one of our weekly walks, my uncle and I were talking about an old family friend and I got to wondering if she might still be alive. When I got home, I did an internet search and found that she had died in 2013. What I discovered next, however, opened a whole new can of worms in my life.

As I remember her, Dorcine Mallow was the sweet, kind woman who lived next door to my grandparents. She was my grandmother’s good friend and an active member of the community, as well as a mother and grandmother. So why did I find her name on a list of unclaimed dead for 2013?

In all my work with the dead, and in all my visits to cemeteries, I’d somehow never stopped to wonder about the unclaimed dead. I have, however, spent time helping the unidentified dead—people whose bodies are found without names or any identifying information.

But the unclaimed dead have names, they have identities and known lives. Their remains are simply never claimed by family or friends.

As I learned in recent weeks, there are many possible reasons this might happen. Sometimes the deceased—often homeless or transient—lost all contact with relatives. Sometimes family members simply cannot afford the cost of cremation or burial. Sometimes the deceased was genuinely disliked and relatives want nothing else to do with them. And sometimes, sadly, the living just don’t care.

Another reason that these dead go unclaimed (and one that is becoming more and more common) is that the next-of-kin is never notified. In some counties, it’s not clear whose job it is to locate family of the deceased (whether it’s under the purview of the coroner’s office or local law enforcement) and, unfortunately, the task falls through the cracks.

There is a national online database that was put in place to help with this issue, but its use is not mandatory and, unfortunately, very few states utilize this tool.

The database is part of the NamUs site and can be found here:  https://www.namus.gov/UnclaimedPersons/Search You can put your state in the ‘location found’ field to see if there are any unclaimed dead listed there.

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What happens to these unclaimed remains?

That’s not as straightforward a question as we might hope. There is no federal level process in place for most unclaimed dead. The exception to this is for unclaimed veterans through the Missing in America Project or MIAP. This is their mission statement: “The purpose of the MIA Project is to locate, identify and inter the unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans through the joint efforts of private, state and federal organizations. To provide honor and respect to those who have served this country by securing a final resting place for these forgotten heroes.”

The work they do is incredible and I encourage everyone to check out their website: https://www.miap.us/

What happens to the remains of all other unclaimed dead in the United States varies on a county-by-county basis. When the body is received by the county coroner or medical examiner, it is held there for varying lengths of time while an attempt is made to locate next-of-kin, which, as mentioned above, might not actually happen. Some counties are overrun with unclaimed dead and are only able to hold bodies for the minimum required time (as little as three days depending on the county) before having them cremated or donating them to medical schools.

Some counties like Bronx county, NY; Los Angeles county, CA; and Dallas county, TX have large cemeteries dedicated to the burial of unclaimed dead.

For the vast majority of counties, however, the information is much harder to come by. Some county coroners have their own storerooms with boxes of unclaimed ashes. Some contract with local funeral homes to bury or scatter the cremated remains in a local cemetery. Some bury them, unmarked, in the ground at county prisons.

As I discovered all of this, it became important to me to put together a list of locations where unclaimed dead are laid to rest in each county. I’m sharing the preliminary list below, which is very much a work in progress. And here is where we get to my first request for help…

If you know of the location where unclaimed dead are laid to rest in your county, please send me an email at jennahiott@gmail.com so I can add it to the list. And please feel free to share the link to this document. The more eyes on it, the more likely we’ll be to get it all filled out.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xcoiz37om6muGzncnWMXmFndsITvf0g5NVg2UP1wQpk/edit?usp=sharing

(On the left side of the document, you’ll see a table of contents with the states in alphabetical order.)

My second request for help is this: if you are able and willing to go to the place in your county where unclaimed dead have been laid to rest, please say a prayer and/or do a ritual for these people. Sometimes the dead—in whole or in fragments—get stuck here and need us, the living, to help them reclaim their wholeness and get to where they need to be. Forgotten people are often the most at-risk of this happening. In addition to helping out the dead, we also keep the spiritual ecology of a place in better shape by helping these folks move on.

If this work appeals to you (and I hope it does), you can do the ritual I outlined in my recent post called A Psychopomp Introduction. Or you can simply say a brief prayer. An example might be: “[Name of Divinity/Spirit Guide], please help the forgotten ones here return to wholeness and move on from any attachments, if needed. Please bring to them their own wise and well ancestors, and great divine powers, to facilitate any healing as well as guide them to where they need to be. May they know love and comfort on every level. Thank you.” (A small offering of water or other libation is also a good idea.) Before you leave, be sure to ask your face of Divinity or primary spirit helper to ensure your energy is clear and your boundaries are secure.

To anyone who does take on this work, even just one time, I am sincerely grateful. We are all connected. Death does not cause us to stop needing one another.

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As for Dorcine Mallow, I will likely never know the reasons why her family left her unclaimed. But I believe she lead me to find her (and many others) at the Fairview Cemetery here in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. She was instrumental in putting me on the path to learning about the unclaimed dead.

My husband and I spent a couple hours at Fairview recently doing a ritual for these unclaimed dead. I was so pleased to find memorial stones and even a list of names. My hope is that one day all counties in the U.S. are able to provide these services.

Do you have experience with unclaimed dead? Do you know how this is handled in countries outside the United States? I’d love to hear from you about it in the comments below!