How to ask a stranger on Facebook to talk to someone about getting in touch without sounding like a creepy stalker?

Question

I found a long lost relative of mine on Facebook. He is my paternal uncle. I added him as a friend and sent a message a few months ago. My relative does not go on Facebook very often and has not yet seen my message. He also doesn't seem to use it very much at all.

I can see his friends list on Facebook and I was thinking of asking one of his Facebook friends to tell him to check his messages. We have no mutual Facebook friends though.

How can I do this without being creepy? I have never met my relative or had contact with him before. I'm his long lost niece that he doesn't know about yet and it's a long story...He doesn't know I exist because my father didn't tell his family. There's obviously no animosity between myself and my uncle, but there could be between my father and others, but I don't know. I'm not sure how well these people know him or know how many nieces and nephews he has. A skeleton is about to fall out of the closet.

I am trying to get in touch with XYZ. Would you be able to ask him to check his Facebook messages?

Answer 1

Introduce yourself and explain your motives. You're trying to get in touch with a family member, and they haven't responded yet. That's a fairly understandable scenario, and not especially creepy.

In contrast, if you withhold explanation, then the omission could be perceived as suspicious or creepy. They may doubt your credentials or your motives.

At minimum, your message should establish:

• Who you are (you're a possible relative of XYZ)
• Why you're contacting them (because they're on XYZ's friends list)
• What you want from them (ask XYZ to respond to you)

If you want to avoid specific familial details, then you can simply describe yourself as a "relative" of this person; you don't need to clarify the family situation. Here's an example message.

Hi so-and-so,

I am trying to get in touch with XYZ, because he is a relative of mine. I noticed that you are on his friends list, and hoped you could help me. I had messaged him on Facebook a few months ago, but I haven't seen a response yet. Could you ask him to check for my messages?

Thanks,

Aubrey

---

This is based on the standard I use and expect in professional communication, when it's often required to message strangers with a request. On Facebook, I've also used this before when one of my siblings went MIA and I needed to reach them; I messaged their friends with something like "Hi, this is such-and-such's brother. I've been trying to reach her for the past few days but I haven't heard back. Have you heard from her recently?". I contacted multiple people, and most of them answered.

I've also been in the position of the recipient, being contacted by strangers. When the opening messages don't establish credentials or motives (e.g. the message says little more than "Hello!" or "Do you have time to chat?"), then I usually suspect it's spam, a bot, or something else worth ignoring. But if the message seemed to originate from a real person, with a plausible reason for contacting me, then I usually responded with the information they sought.