Of course they could, we think of them as UNWILLING PARTICIPANTS. However, SOMEONE had to SUPPLY the information to begin with.
Update: The 'missing' FAMILY SEARCH entry has now been found, relocated to a different URL.
OK .. but devil’s advocate: they pick a reasonable timeframe for the messiah’s age and birth and low and behold, someone born in that timeframe sadly dies one day after birth. With all the data mining bots and underhanded snakes and sleuths in his midst, they just sniff it out and confiscate it.
So, they’re on a death hunt that fits the right variables.
Chances are, the parents aren’t going to even know or be in a position to find out that the BC# of their child is now attached to another this many years later. That kind of information just wouldn’t naturally come up in the routine of life.
I mean .. if we REALLY want to get low down, dirty and diabolical.