How Do I Find a High School Friend for Free?

Online sites are user-friendly and generally free.

With the rapid advances in technology over the past 10 years, finding just about anyone is easy as long as you have access to the Internet. Using the Internet is the fastest way to locate your old high school friends and find out what they have been up to. There are several options for locating your old high school friends, and most of them are free of charge.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Internet connection

Instructions

1. Sign up at a social networking site such as MySpace or Facebook. Registration is free and requires minimal information to get an account started. You can build a profile with current information and photos of yourself. Search the site for your friends, then, when you find them, you can even search their friend lists for other names from the past.

2. Search some of the other websites that are specific for finding old classmates, such as classmates.com. Here, you create a profile by entering in the name of your high school, the location of your high school and the year in which you graduated. Next, you can search the lists by the first or last name of your friend.

3. Check your old high school; most schools and school districts will have a website of their own. From there, you can contact your high schools' alumni association or even sign up for an alumni newsletter to keep you updated about your high school classmates.

4. Use a people-locating site such as locatepeople.org. This site doesn't require any information from you. Simply type in the name of the person you are looking for and a state. For example, if you type in "Sally Smith," the site will bring up all "Sally Smiths" for which it has records, along with a city and state for each one. You can get more information, such as phone numbers and background checks, for a fee.

Tips & Warnings

• No matter which route you use to find your high school friends, it's best to fill out your profiles and basic information as completely and as accurately as possible, as this will make it easier for people to find you and for you to find other people.

• More information on your profile at a social networking site makes it easier to connect to your old friends, but it is also a lot of information for strangers or unwanted people to see. You can adjust the security settings for your account so that only people you allow can access certain information. If you choose to use a classmate finder site, you will only find information about your fellow classmates who have also chosen to put their names on the list.

References

• Facebook
• Peoplefinder.com
• Classmates.com