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International Family Tracing

International Family Tracing Services

  • Armed conflict and natural disaster leave millions of people around the globe in urgent need of humanitarian assistance every year.  
  • Red Cross Tracing Services and Red Cross Messages help families locate each other, send communication, and learn each other’s fate. Tracing loved ones can take a long time; nevertheless, families need closure.
  • Holocaust Tracing Program. As part of our tracing services, the American Red Cross established the Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, a national clearing house for United States residents seeking the fates of loved ones missing since World War II and its aftermath.  If you are one of these survivors, the American Red Cross can help.  
All of our tracing services are confidential and free of charge. To begin your search, call our International Social Services office at 713-313-1635.       
                          
Tracing assistance is provided to people in the community who have been separated from their relatives (citizens of other countries) as a result of war, civil disturbances, natural disaster, or changing world conditions over which the individual has no control. Tracing services for victims of war have their foundation in the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols.
 
Red Cross Messages are written messages sent between prisoners of war and their relatives through Red Cross channels, usually when no other communication is possible. Red Cross Message service may also be available to civilian victims of war, especially when postal services have completely collapsed.
 
International Disaster Welfare Inquiries are health and welfare inquiries sent to alleviate distress when normal direct communication between family members is disrupted and attempts to reestablish contact between a person in the United States and a close relative who is a citizen of another country have failed.
 
International Humanitarian Law is the body of laws and principles that seeks to save lives and alleviate suffering of combatants and noncombatants during armed conflicts. Its principal legal documents are the Geneva Conventions of 1949, four treaties signed by almost all states (nations) around the world. The Geneva Conventions specifically protect members of the armed forces who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, prisoners of war, and civilians. (Also sometimes referred to as "the law of armed conflict" or the "law of war.")