People feel frustrated and unsure of where to turn when looking for old classmates, long-lost relatives, old friends, or other people they have no contact with. The Internet has certainly opened up many new opportunities to find classmates and other people. In the days before the web, before 1990, looking for someone really hard to find often required the expensive services of a private investigator, and even they weren’t always successful and kept your money.
If you’re like most people, you’ll probably first contact your old school or alumni association, except this isn’t always successful. People move, marry and remarry, or in some cases leave the country all together, and very few classmates who move far away keep in touch or forward information. Calling directory assistance is usually a waste of time. If classmates are currently active in the workforce, there’s a chance their resume is posted somewhere online, so a Google, Yahoo, and MSN search for their name might find them. One of the most common problems encountered when searching for a person is not knowing the person’s exact middle name. Many people searches return multiple people with the same first and last name and the same middle initial. You can try the removal process and email or call each one individually, but this may be embarrassing for some. Most people don’t care, but be prepared to deal with some rude people. In extreme cases some have hired a private investigator but this is a very expensive option and there may not be a money back guarantee if you are unsuccessful so it could be a huge waste of money that isn’t even tax-deductible.
Avoid the temptation to do business with some of the popular classmate matching sites. Some of these use misleading or misleading advertising, claiming a “Free” trial membership, and usually asking for your credit card as soon as you try to send a message to a classmate, or look up their information which may or may not give any result. By creating your free account and answering a few questions, you are provided with a link to the page where you see a list of familiar names of former classmates and sometimes teachers with the option to send them a message, except after you have drafted your message. and clicking Submit takes you to the page where your credit card information is requested. Some people, excited to get in touch with long-lost friends, against their better judgment, pull out their credit cards and give them what they want. Many people have found themselves being scammed and billed fraudulently.
It’s very likely that some of your old high school classmates remained in your hometown, but most have moved to other states, possibly other countries, or might be homeless, serving in the US military. in Iraq or Afghanistan, deceased or possibly doing jail or prison time! The old high school bully who was captain of the football team could be in jail or prison today.
Most of the popular people search sites access only a few public databases, so many people searches return results for the wrong person or fail altogether. There is literally an astronomical amount of public records, located in thousands of public records databases across the country: court records, voting records, motor vehicle/aircraft/vessel titles, etc. just to mention a few, especially human beings who are citizens or legal resident aliens. The problem is that these are located in a patchwork of thousands of county, local, state jurisdictions across the United States.
While the Internet has certainly opened up many great opportunities to track people down, it remains a daunting task without the proper knowledge or tools to conduct effective searches.
Your best bet may be to try a low-cost, honest people search tool like Net Detective. Visit http://www.beyourowndetective.com for more information.