Talking with Troy Dunn, now with his own UP TV series

He became a talk-show fixture including "Sally Jessy Raphael," "Montel," "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil." He had a show on WE-TV called "The Locator" (2008-2010) and for a hot second, a similar show on Atlanta-based TNT called "APB With Troy Dunn" (2014).

Now he's move on to another Atlanta-based network Up TV with "Last Hope with Troy Dunn," which debuted a few weeks ago.

Dunn claims to have tracked down thousands of people, starting first with his mother's birth parents.

He said technology has changed his job significantly over the years. When he first started, before the Internet, he relied on public libraries, fax machines and microfiche.

"Now it's 2015," Dunn said in a recent interview. "Every human being has access to millions of times more data than we could have dreamed of. People can solve their own cases. They can go on ancestry.com and search engines. When people come to me, they've exhausted all the obvious resources. That's why I'm the 'last hope.' "

Given the typical circumstances, he said "it's just a smidge under unsolvable. And this show has gotten away from just doing adoption stories like on 'The Locator.' We are dealing with more complicated scenarios that often include abuse and criminal action. It's exciting but I'm probably more anxiety filled. The payoff is substantial when we crack a case."

Last Thursday's very emotional episode featured a woman named Jacemyein from Atlanta. She hadn't heard from her mother Yong Cha since she was a toddler, who her father said abandoned her. "It's heartbreaking," she says 30 years later. "I want the truth."

Jacemyein says she was abused by her father, ran away and landed in a group home at age 16.

Dunn said he takes all stories with a "grain of salt" but "sometimes the words people say are less important than what you see on their face. I have a good BS meter. You can sense sincerity and honesty and true pain and true suffering."

The episode shows Dunn trying to track the mom down and hitting a dead end. "There's no quick way to tap  a database to give me information," he says on the show.

But he has his own app which allows anybody to help him locate people. Someone finds a marriage certificate tied to the mother and he calls Yong Cha, who now lives in Oklahoma. She sounds shocked when he called but she ultimately decides to meet her daughter. She tells him her ex-husband took away her kids. She didn't abandon Jacemyein. He hears Yong Cha's story and she collapses in tears.

"Yong, it was not your fault," Dunn says on the show. "Today's your victory. You win."

Soon after, Dunn reunites mother and daughter. Try not to get teary-eyed when you watch them hug.

Dunn himself is usually able to keep it professional on camera, but he often walks away and sits in his rental car and cries it out later.

"This is a long taxing journey," he said. "But it's not about me."

Nowadays, Dunn doesn't do this for money from the clients (though of course he is compensated to do the TV show.). "I do it for the healing," he said, "the reunion. I enjoy seeing it."

Dunn stays in touch with many of the families after the fact. "People send me Christmas cards holding children and grandchildren they may never have known," he said.

And he feels more comfortable at Up TV than TNT, which was going through a regime change last year. In a moment's notice, his show became an afterthought on the network.

"The people here at Up are so sincere and genuine," he said. But he picked the network without the approval of his agent, who he said ultimately quit on him. "He thought I was crazy going with a tiny cable channel."

But he told the agent: "This tiny cable channel stands for everything I believe in. If I could start my own television network, I'd create something like Up TV. This is where I need to be."

ON TV

"Last Hope With Troy Dunn," 9 p.m. Thursdays, Up TV