How to Search for Missing People
There are a host of different reasons why you might search for a missing person, ranging from a criminal situation to working on a genealogy project. Whatever the reason, with the exception of foul play, the methodology of searching for missing people has shifted from traditional means of searching via a paper trail to a solely online search.
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Instructions
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Go to the police if a family member or loved one has suddenly turned up missing. They have a specific procedure to follow in the instance of missing people, and this is important since you don't know from the start if the situation is foul play or personal. Therefore, if you suspect something amiss about someone missing in your life, going to the police should be your first move. You will likely have to file a missing person's report, putting the person's name into a national database, which will also circulate information and a photograph about him on national news and media wires.
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Do a general search online. This is best conducted when looking for someone who is simply missing from your life. Go to a search engine like Yahoo! or Google and enter their full name and the city and state of their last known residence. You will likely get a number of results that don't necessarily relate to the person you are looking for, but generally there will be some small piece of related information. You may have to spend time combing through the results, however, and there can be quite a few.
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Conduct a public records search. If the missing person has gotten married, filed for divorce, purchased property, built a home, filed property taxes or voted in the last several years, they can likely be traced back to a recent location via a public records search. There are numerous sites online that offer this service for a fee, which is convenient if you don't feel like searching through the individual databases for each category; however, you can search yourself for free with the latter method.
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Phone family and friends. In addition to utilizing technology, you might also consider going a more traditional route and picking up the phone to see if anyone has heard from this person. Since people still do a great deal of communicating via telephone, you might be surprised to find that someone has talked to the missing person recently.
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