Have you ever wondered what happened to your old friends from elementary school, high school or college? Maybe you’d like to get in touch and see how they’re doing? It’s not as difficult as you think, thanks to the Internet. Here are some tips for using the Internet to find old friends:
First of all, the most obvious places to check are the big classmate and hangout sites. Visit Classmates.com and Reunion.com first. You’ll find a decent portion of the people in your high school class on these sites, especially Classmates.com, since they’ve been around longer and advertise more. Unfortunately, if you find someone on one of these sites, you’ll have to pay for a membership to contact them. The sites have to pay the bills somehow and that’s the trick. However, if you don’t want to pay, there are other options. Very often, if the person you’re looking for is a woman and she’s married, you’ll be able to see what her new last name is, which will make finding her much easier for you. You will also be able to see the city where the person *now* lives, again, another valuable detail.
searching
Now, let’s search the Internet for the person. I recommend trying Google first, then MSN, since MSN technically has the largest database of indexed pages and also the most up-to-date index.
search tips
Search first for the person’s name, with quotes:
“Alexandra Jones”
If the person has a unique name, the results will be smaller, but if they have a common name, you will need to narrow your search a lot. Try searching with the middle initial or full middle name. You can also add a state or the initials of a state, like so:
“Alexandra Alicia Jones”
“Alexandra A. Jones”
Alexandra Jones, Florida
Alexandra Jones, Florida
Perhaps the person was an artist or a writer? Add the words “art” or “author” to the search. You’ll be surprised how much it narrows down your search. The same if the person is a mechanic, engineer or interior designer. Add these words or variations of these words to your search to refine your results. Many professions and companies have websites where they can list the names of employees. If you know the person is a dentist, try looking in dental directories online, they’ll likely be listed so new patients can find them.
Be sure to take advantage of the advanced search features of each search engine, these features are usually very easy to use and extremely powerful. You will see the Google advanced search link right on your home page.
There are also specialized search engines available that are useful for finding certain people online. There are specialized search engines for books, blogs, news, images, media, and just about anything you can think of.
Do not forget to look on the website of the local newspaper for the city in which you graduated, perhaps they were mentioned in a story? Also, your high school website may even have an alumni section where you can sign up and search for alumni. Don’t forget to look in the big yellow and white page directories online, they may just be listed! Also try AOL, Yahoo, Myspace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Friendster, and other community member directories. Some people may even be involved in researching their family trees online, so try checking the major genealogy sites for your last name, they may be posting!
Perhaps you remember that this person loved cross-stitching, Billy Joel, or deep-sea fishing? You can check some message boards with these niche topics, you might find that “AlexandraJ” has 1000 posts on Billy Joel’s official message board. That could be her!
if all else fails
There are specific people search engines available. These generally look for public records. For the more powerful ones, you will have to pay for real contact information. You can also have Yahoo or Google notify you whenever a person’s name appears in a news story or on the web, using Yahoo or Google Alerts. Go to google.com/alerts to set one up. If you didn’t find anything, this is a great way to use a search engine to let you know about new search results, blog posts, or other news with a specific name mentioned.
If after exhausting all avenues online, you still can’t find any mention of this person, this person may have moved, changed their name, moved out of the country, or simply doesn’t want to be found.
You’ll also want to be prepared for any sensitive information you find, often public records will show up in searches, so you may see bankruptcy records, foreclosures, divorce records, criminal records, legal issues, disturbing blog posts, or even a obituary.
