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Finding People

Possible Questions That Can Be Answered Using This FAQ

• I just know my best friend from elementary school is online, but I can't find her email address. How can I find it?
• My cousin moved to San Francisco years ago and we haven't heard from him since. Is there a city directory available online where we can search for him?

The Web offers some ways to find people, but because not everyone has a presence on the Web and because Web users are concerned about being able to maintain their privacy, it is a challenging method for finding people. (Some sites charge a fee and offer a promise for personal information.)

Consider expanding your search to resources that are off the Web as well. Here is a mixture of online and offline ways to find people.

A good starting point is the "Finding People - Lost Family and Friends" page from About.com. The collection of links on this page covers a wide variety of search strategies from city directories to government public records.

If you are trying to find someone you went to school with, there are several sites on the Internet where you can register yourself as an alum of a particular school or schools, and then check (sometimes for a fee) to see whether any of your old classmates have registered. A good place to check for these sites is Yahoo's category for Alumnae/i Associations.

If you have someone's phone number and need their address, or vice versa, there are a couple of options. There are several sites, such as AnyWho and Infospace that offer "reverse phone directory" searching for finding out the name and address associated with a particular phone number. Infospace also offers reverse address and email Lookups as well.

Off the Web, ask your local public librarian for help using a "crisscross directory", a directory that enables similar "reverse searching."   You can find your local library through a good directory called LibWeb.

If you are trying to find someone's address for bill collection purposes, try contacting their city of last known residence to see if there are any records of water bill or tax payments that list a forwarding address. Be aware that the city may charge for this information, and may also not release the information to you.

Hiring professional assistance to locate someone is also an option. There are plenty of investigators for hire. A good place to check is in the Yellow Pages — use the keyword "investigators," (without the quotes) and enter the location you'd like to target, for private investigators, investigative services, and/or credit investigators. You can also check the investigative services category in directories, such as Yahoo's. Be aware that private investigators will charge a significant amount of money to help locate someone for you. We at the IPL cannot recommend any particular investigator or company over any other.

Looking for someone in the UK? Try this excellent on-line pamphlet from the UK's Family Records Office, Tracing Missing Persons. (The document may also be useful as a suggested research path for those not in the UK as well.) The document is in PDF format, and while most computers are equipped with the software needed to access PDFs (Adobe Acrobat Reader), here is a link to the free download — just in case you need it:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html

You might also want to look at our document on Finding Phone Numbers.

Finally, if you are seeking genealogy help, the Internet Public Library has a Genealogy guide that may be just what you need.