Barry Steven's Web Search

I used the web by doing wide searches on names. One name I used was BP Wiesner, the pioneer researcher who got sperm donors from among his colleagues and friends on behalf of Mary Barton, his wife and the doctor who arranged my conception.

Wiesner, though he died long before anyone had thought of the internet, left an electronic trail. For instance, in the papers of a famous scientist at Cambridge, his name appeared as a member of a club of biologists who were experimenting with new techniques in the late 1930's. Searching among these other names, I would find those that had persistent links with Wiesner, who had published with him, worked with him, and so forth. If they had an interest in eugenics or in new reproductive techniques, they would get special attention.

I would then trace these men's careers and various addresses using public records like Medical Directories and births, deaths and marriages. If the man in question was Jewish (since I knew the sperm donor was Jewish), had children, was healthy, in London during the dates of my sister's and my conception, was consistently linked to Wiesner (often he would have an address within a few blocks of Wiesner), was adventurous or unorthodox in character, then I would focus on him.

I would go back to the web and look for his relatives -- anyone with the same last name -- on one of the address search engines. I would write polite letters, sometimes dozens for one man, and sometimes telephone or email. Sometimes this would work, sometimes not. I would often then talk with people, usually old people, and get more clues. Often I would get a DNA test from them. If it failed, I would start again. People were amazingly helpful and friendly almost without exception.

Certain sites were particularly useful: for instance, the British Eugenics Society's membership list with mini-biographies, which is maintained by an anti-racist organization, included a number of my candidates for sperm donor.

Sometimes the thinnest of clues helped. One old man I talked with remembered that Wiesner's gang of left wing biologists would meet at a certain cafe, but he couldn't remember where it was. I punched the name of the place into Google and turned up an old memoir of a composer who had spent time at this cafe, and thus got its proximate location. It had been bombed during the war and was gone, but its location became a means by which to connect other people to the circle.

Chasing names on the web led me from India to Calgary, from Byelorussia to Britain, and from the 30's to the 80's. The process was fascinating, because a whole hidden world began to emerge, a world of London in the 40's. Wiesner's network included Viennese Jewish emigres, like Freud, and communists and theoretical biologists. It's extraordinary how a long forgotten life can emerge from this kind of research. You come to know these people and their world, like a Polaroid developing in front of your eyes.