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Step 1
Listen up! I'm going to brag a bit. During my career as a researcher at Google Answers, and at my private research site, XooxleAnswers.com, I've really honed online people search to a fine art. Now, my secrets are revealed, exclusively to eHow clientele. Start searching!
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Step 2
Use Google. Do a Google search on the name, of course. See my article on how to find people with Google for tips on the best search strategies (see Resources, below, for all links mentioned in this article).
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Step 3
Check Several People Search Engines. There are a few search engines that fine-tune regular Google results top focus on people-finding. I used to ignore them (they weren't very good), but they've improved quite a bit recently. Some of the best are Spock.com, Wink.com, and WikiWorldBook.com.
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Step 4
Don't Forget the Phone Book. The beauty of online searching is that there are now national (and international) phone books, so you can search the entire US.
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Step 5
Try Google News. If your person was mentioned in the news, then a search of news past and present may well turn up the name.
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Step 6
Use SSDI. The grimly-named Social Security Death Index has records of 82 million US deaths since 1963. Unless you're sure you're looking for someone who is still alive, SSDI is a good place to search.
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Step 7
Also Try Intelius. This is a fee-based service, but they have a deep database, and you can do a preliminary search for free, which will show (among other things) age, city and relatives.
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Step 8
Don't Forget Social Networks -- Most of the people-information on the various "friends" sites on the internet will show up in a regular Google search, but they can easily get lost. Head directly to MySpace, FaceBook, and Classmates.com (for a school-specific search) to see if your person is listed (and pay attention to some of the advanced search functions offered, like the Friend Finder at FaceBook).
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Step 9
Also search on Google Groups, and BlogSearch to unearth even more results.
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Step 10
Book Searches. Was your person ever mentioned in a book? A search at Amazon Books and Google Books will look inside the books themselves.
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Step 11
Explore Business Contacts at Jigsaw.com. This site is the best business contacts database in existence. It is a fee-based site, but you can do a preliminary search for free and find out if your person is in the database, and what company they are with.
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Step 12
Use Family History Databases. I can only touch on the vast genealogy databases on the web, but for people searching (past and present), it's hard to beat FamilySearch. The Ellis Island database has millions of records of immigrants to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cyndi's List is a huge directory of other ancestry resources.
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Step 13
Explore Public records. If you know a city or county where your person lives, then public records are another resource. They are too diverse to summarize here, but try a search on: registered voters COUNTY NAME, state.
See Resource links, directly below, for a taste of just how comprehensive these sources can be.
Comments
cherylscott said
on 8/4/2009 Very good article. 5s.
hien71 said
on 1/6/2009 If you are not reading carefully, you may think all information is free like finding, name, address etc. You have to pay a fee to get more information or be able to communicate with person. Searches are usually free, but you might have to pay.
BenLeefield said
on 9/12/2008 Hi David
I just saw your article on Knol.
There are also lots of people search engines like ourselves, http://wikiworldbook.com and Spock and Wink which provide highly filtered results for people searches. Could you please add us to your article?
Ben Leefield
LilacGirl said
on 8/16/2008 Thanks for sharing all your tips for finding people. This is a great article, very helpful
Hapworth said
on 8/16/2008 Wow. This is great. There are a few people I would like to find out about. Great!