I need help brainstorming...
 

This is such an odd situation and for some reason I seem incapable of thinking about it clearly. I'm like a dear caught in the headlights.

So, this is the issue... I have written an email to a 1/2 brother who I have never met or had any contact with (I know that he knows I exist, though, and my father, who I also never met, said nearly 25 years ago now that he was very excited about the idea of meeting me), but the email was sent from a site called "PeopleFinders" I think. You pay them 2 bucks for someone's info (phone, address, email), but they don't actually give you the email, you have to send your email through their site. So, it is quite possible that my email was from "PeopleFinders" rather than my name, which he wouldn't know anyway (well, he knows my first name but it's Jane, so I doubt he'd think of me if he saw it). And then like an idiot I put "Hi!" as my subject line because I just could not figure out what to put there. It just seemed too crass to do "Hi! I'm your sister!"

So, anyhow, I sent him the email mail on sunday night and in it was a link to a picture of me that I know he hasn't clicked on yet. It's hard for me to imagine that, even if he wasn't interested in contact, he wouldn't click if he read the email. So I assume he hasn't read it. Either it's a defunct email address or, like me, he just doesn't open what looks like obvious junk mail -- which is the category I would put "PeopleFinders" "Hi!" into if it showed up in my inbox.

Any ideas better than "Hi! I'm your sister!" Or am I stuck with that?

I used peoplefinders too. But I sent a real letter to the house address. Maybe try that route? I didn't trust that the address they gave me was correct either but I was able to find several resources to confirm. Hard to say with an email address though. Maybe you should resend the email with a different subject line...can't think of a good one at the moment though...

Definitely don't give up though. You might just need better contact info.

Do you know his first and last name? If you do, you can easily find his info on spokeo and mail him directly.

I think my next step, after coming up with a more reasonable subject line, will be to use snail mail. One good thing about email is that I can know if he got it because he'll click on this link and I'll have another "view" on that picture. If I send a letter out, I won't know if he'd rather not have contact or if he just didn't get it. And I'd like to feel like I'm not being a stalker or something -- make one contact and then leave it up to him, kwim?

But I do want to get that one contact in. My father and my other brother, who I also have never met, both died about five years ago in separate incidents (weird because they were both pretty young). So, don't want it to go on for too long now that I've decided to do this. You never know what can happen.

I'll check out spokeo. I don't know what it is. His first name is super common and his last name is Jones, so that doesn't make this a whole lot easier. (My father's name is John Jones, for cryin' out loud. lol) But I do know where he is, or where he has been now, so that should help.

Can your mother help? Does she know the name of your brothers mother ? How about grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc?Check for your fathers relatives and his mothers relatives.
If you know the date and place of your fathers death, check with the local newspaper and see if you can get an obituary, that should list names of children and possible location.
I think I would try snail mail , or anything, telephone maybe if you can find a number. I hope he wants to meet you, it is not your fault or his that you have not met.

You can also track to see if he clicked a link by using a URL shortener (like bit.ly --> bitly.com). Which is awesome. Just saying.

Also, not to sound mean, but if the subject just said "Hi!" it probably looked like spam to him. I'd try again if I were you...but definitely keep trying through whatever means possible. This could be the start of something amazing :)