As you know, I cover threads on search topics that I find either interesting, unique and/or useful for SEOs, SEMs and searchers.
I spotted a thread on a fairly morbid topic - death of a loved one. The thread is at Google Web Search Help where a brother said her sister recently died and they want to find some of her search history via Google. I am not exactly sure if this is to look for clues into her death or just for the family to remember her for anything they might find, including her search history.
The brother said:
My sister has just died and this is her pc. We want to look at all the last things she searched on google. She did not seem to have the history option set and her history is not set to store long-term. is there a way we can find out all the things she last searched on google. This is really important to us her family and we woudl appreciate if you could give us any assistance on how we may (if possible) do this.
To you and me, it may be weird to want to dig up a lost family members search history. For one reason, if the sister went out of her way to make sure no history was stored, why would you want to dig it up? But on the other hand, we are thankfully not in the position of this family and I am sure they have really valid reasons for this.
This is a really sad story but one that I've never seen before.
Kelly F. from Google replied to the brother, she said:
I'm very sorry for your loss. The only way to recover your sister's search history is to sign in to her account and hope that she was recording her search history. If not, then her past searches cannot be accessed.
I am also very sorry for the family's loss. I do hope they can get any closure via Google or the computer's history.
We do live in a new world.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
