How to Find Someone on the Internet for Free

Be a Modern Day Sherlock Holmes and find people on the internet with free search tools

There is information out there on just about everyone, whether a long lost friend from high school, or long lost part of family history from the 19th century. Here's how to people search for anyone, absolutely free.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

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!

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 for all links mentioned in this article).

3. Pipl is a powerful and free people search engine.

   Check Several People Search Engines. There are a few search engines that fine-tune regular Google results to 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 Pipl.com, Spock.com, Wink.com, and WikiWorldBook.com.

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.

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.

6. SSDI has records on millions of dead people, including Elvis.

   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.

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.

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).

9. Also search on Google Groups, and BlogSearch to unearth even more results.

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.

11. Jigsaw helps find contact information for where people work.

    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.

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.

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.

Resources

• Google
• My Tips on Using Google for People Searching
• National Phone Book (White Pages)
• Google News (current)
• Google News Archives (historical)
• Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
• SSDI Expert Search
• Intelius People Search (one of the web's best)
• MySpace
• FaceBook
• Classmates.com
• Google Groups
• BlogSearch
• Amazon Search Inside books
• Google Books
• Jigsaw Business & Company Searches
• Public Record Searches (example)
• FamilySearch.org
• Ellis Island Immigration
• Cyndi's List
• My Research Service, for Professional People Search
• Wink People Search
• Spock People Search
• WikiWorldbook People Search