Pam Slaton: “Searching for …”

Update: 9 March 2011

I am not Pam Sla­ton, and do not even know her. A lot of folks are post­ing here think­ing they are con­tact­ing Pam, but, unfor­tu­nate­ly, they are not. I wish I could pass infor­ma­tion on to her, but I am not in touch with her.

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This was news to me: Oprah Win­frey’s OWN tele­vi­sion net­work has a show that fol­lows a pro­fes­sion­al geneal­o­gist. The show, enti­tled “Search­ing for …” runs Mon­day nights at 9/8 Cen­tral. Pam Sla­ton, the geneal­o­gist the show focused on helps reunite the adopt­ed with their birth fam­i­lies, and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers with one anoth­er after they have been sep­a­rat­ed for some time and lost touch with one anoth­er.

On the OWN site, they write:

“Search­ing For… is a doc­u­men­tary series that fol­lows the real-life work of Pam Sla­ton, a pro­fes­sion­al inves­tiga­tive geneal­o­gist, stay-at-home mom and New Jer­sey house­wife.

“View­ers can expect an intense­ly per­son­al ride when cam­eras fol­low Pam and her clients through each step as they track down lost loved ones. Each searcher’s sto­ry is dif­fer­ent, and the results are unpre­dictable and emo­tion­al­ly charged. Whether Pam’s clients find a joy­ous reunion, painful rejec­tion or trag­ic loss, they all walk away with the clo­sure they were des­per­ate to find.

“Pam Sla­ton’s career as a pro­fes­sion­al inves­tiga­tive geneal­o­gist began near­ly 20 years ago. Want­i­ng to find her own birth moth­er, Pam hired to a pro­fes­sion­al searcher. The expe­ri­ence was the most dev­as­tat­ing of her life, and Pam vowed that no one else should have to go through what she did. She keeps her own pain in mind when help­ing clients on their jour­neys. And her results are astound­ing! Pam has an 85 per­cent suc­cess rate, fol­lows a strict “no find, no pay” pol­i­cy, and is one of the most sought-after pro­fes­sion­al searchers in the coun­try.”

I will have to take a look.

One of the key aspects of geneal­o­gy shows, which this one looks to have in spades, is an emo­tion­al com­po­nent that most non-geneal­o­gists seem to not expect. With a focus on re-unit­ing liv­ing peo­ple, Pam Sla­ton’s niche in geneal­o­gy seems to be focused direct­ly on emo­tion­al con­tent which should dri­ve the show. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t know how many peo­ple know about this show.