When I first started practicing, one of my first divorce cases was a situation where the husband and wife had parted thier separate ways over 20 years ago.  They had long lost contact with each other, and had really no idea where the other party was located.  The problem was my client was ready to get re-married and needed to be divorced first in order not to be a bigamist!  We filed a motion with the Court so that they would issue an Order of Publication.  The Notice was then published in a local newspaper and when the time and date in the notice elapsed we could proceed with the divorce.  Problem solved and my former client and his new wife are living happily ever after.