How you start your search will depend on the information you have at hand, but for now we’ll focus on the basics.
Phone & Address Searches
There are millions of telephone and address records housed online in searchable databases. With just a few basic details such as a persons name, and the area they live, you can locate a person online in just minutes.
Search Engines
Often overlooked as a source for locating someone, search engines contain a wealth of information. Whether the person you are seeking is online or not, their name and other details maybe. Search engines collect text from web pages, so if the person you are looking for has their name on the web anywhere, a search engine may have collected that page and placed it ready for your search. Examples include club sites with the names of committee/club members listed, and published college papers containing author names.
Internet Specific Searches
It is common place these days for those connected to the internet to have some sort of instant messaging service enabled. The major message services offer searchable databases of their members (who have elected to allow their information to remain public), and can be quite effective for finding someone. Email Searches are also a common point of call for locating someone, and are certainly worth considering.
What do you know about them?
Using your knowledge of a person can take you a long way to finding them online.
i.e. Do you know the School or College the attended? Try the Classmate and Reunion registries. There are literally millions of people registered on these style sites, and all easily found.
Help Them Find You!
Is there someone out there looking for you? Take the effort out of finding people and help them find you. Placing your information in various registries online makes the people search process a lot simpler. You never know who you’ll get to catch up with.
Good luck with your search!
February 2005 :: Article 1.01