How to Search for a Person Free of Charge

If you want to find an old friend or a relative with whom you have lost touch, there are several ways to do it for free. You can use a computer and the Internet or try more traditional ways, such as calling mutual friends to see if anyone knows where she is or calling her parents if they're still living in the same house. Modern technology is making it easier than ever to find people.

Things You'll Need

• Computer Internet Correct spelling of name Personal information such as high school or city of residence

Instructions

How to Search for a Person Free of Charge

1. List as much personal information as you know about the person you are looking for. It will help you separate your friend from the many others who have the same name. Useful personal information includes a birth date, middle initial, last known address (at least the state), name of high school and names of spouse and children.

2. Use a free Internet search site such as Zaba Search, White Pages or Pretrieve, a public record search engine (see "References"). White Pages works like a phone book. You enter the name of the person and his state, and it shows you an address and phone number if the person is listed in the phone book. Zaba Search claims to have three times as many listings as the White Pages phone directory. This site also has phone number search option, just like the White Pages site does. Pretrieve searches thousands of official public record sites to find court, criminal and property records.

3. Search for a person free of charge on a social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn or Classmates.com. It might be harder to find your missing person through LinkedIn and Facebook, because you generally see a limited amount of information on these sites unless the person has accepted you as a contact or friend. You can still search for people for free on these sites, and the short listing will show you the person's name, state and a small photo. On MySpace and Classmates.com, you can usually see more of the person's profile without being preapproved. Keep your personal information list handy to help you narrow your search.

4. Create a personal ad on craigslist (see "Resources"). This isn't the easiest way to find someone, but you can write and post a personal ad on the site at no cost. It helps to know the city or general area where you think the person lives. On the craigslist site, click on the city where you want the ad to run, then click on "post to classifieds." Follow the steps to make a personal ad.

References

• Zaba Search
• Public Record Search Engine
• Free People Search Tips

Resources

• craigslist