MORE than a quarter of Britons have lost contact with a family member at some point in their lives, says the Salvation Army.

The charity, which runs a family tracing service, says that more than half of those wish to find their relative again although three quarters of them have made no attempt to track them down.

The organisation commissioned a survey to find out how, and why, people lost touch as part of the Missing Persons Awareness Month which ends in May.

Lt Col Ron Smith, director of the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service, said the charity reunited between 10 and 12 people every day and had an 86 per cent success rate in the 5,000 cases it handled every year.

"The family tracing service is able to find people sometimes with only a small amount of information or after many years of lost contact," said Mr Smith.

"A lot of women in their late 20s or early 30s contact us, having had their own children, wanting to find a missing parent. It's as if becoming a parent themselves has prompted them to try.

"Also people ask us to find relatives whom they don't have contact with because of arguments or family splits among members of the previous generation of family.

"They are the innocent parties who pay the price of a long-running dispute and have lost contact with parents, siblings or grandparents as a result."

The tracing service, which was established in 1885, uses a variety of sources to find people including army records and birth, marriage and death certificates.

The service charges £35 to carry out a search and £15 for those on benefits, although the average trace costs the Salvation Army more than £130 to complete.