[bediger4000]

The thing that makes this different is that the US government has kept better track of its citizens since about 1955. Despite our fear of the Mark of The Beast, we track (effectively) everybody via Social Security Number. I don't think this was true until on into the 1970s.

I'm sure that this kind of thing went on all the time in the US, in smaller towns and rural areas. People disappeared all the time. Probably most of them moved to the big city or California, but a bunch probably ended up in unmarked graves. A friend of mine had a grandmother who lived in Milwaukee. She was Jewish. She fell in love with the Polish butcher. They disappeared from Milwaukee. A couple of months later, they were in Denver, married, and she was now Catholic. The special thing about my friend's grandmother, is that he knows the story. The bitter thing about that story is that it can't happen today, because we all are tracked. There are good reasons, but that doesn't mean that giving up segmentation of risks is all that great.