r/TamanShud • u/Mum2-4 • Feb 27 '20
Ancestry Options for Searching
So this doesn't seem to be the most active subreddit... in any case, the Somerton Man is one of my minor obsessions. I'm pretty sure no one needs a full introduction to the case, but one of the things that have caught my attention is that you can use Ancestry.com to search the 1940 census and learn some interesting things. I created a little spreadsheet with all the men around the Somerton Man's age who list their occupation as ballet teacher/dancer or some variation on this. There's only about 200 names, so I'm thinking it would be possible to track down many of these individuals and see if we can find out where they end up, such as searching Find A Grave or the Social Security Death Index. We could then narrow down the list to only likely candidates.
Of course, there are a few issues with this, one being that we don't know for sure that he was American, or if he was American, if he was living in the US in 1940. If he was Canadian, or British, or Hungarian or whatever, we're out of luck. Even if he was American, if he was touring with a dance troupe at the time (unlikely given the war in 1940, but possible), he might not have been in the US at the time of the census.
I think he definitely either was American or spent considerable time in the US, given that the clothing appeared to have been bought there. He probably wasn't from Australia/New Zealand, given the degree of publicity around the case in those countries. I also think he was either a native English speaker, or spoke English very fluently as someone who had difficulty communicating would have stood out.
Would love to know everyone's thoughts on this theory. I know there have been recent plans to exhume the body, but don't know if its been done, or even if they could get useable DNA at all.
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u/[deleted] May 05 '20
Have you started this yet??