SEARCH FOR PEOPLE FOR FREE
Hello! And welcome to my tips on how to search for people for free.
Nowadays, with so many resources available, where does one start to look for someone? What are the good resources? What if you just don’t have the time? What if you get stuck and need professional help? How to search for people for free?
Please read on…
Everybody leaves a paper trail and that trail can be followed. Of course, with so much information on the Internet and with so many other resources, things can be a little overwhelming.
That is why I am here: my goal is to simplify things a bit for you and to save you some time and help you do your people search.
I am a librarian by profession and I often see patrons who want to find people for whatever reasons. The common theme, however, is that the patrons often seem overwhelmed at the task. On this site I hope to be your librarian; I want to give you good tips and resources to assist you.
Before we get started I need to say something important. As a librarian, I do not ask my patrons why they want to do to a people search; we librarians only care about assisting people with a question(s). That said, this is my personal website and my content, so I get to step away from that a little bit. Here goes:
Please do not use my information to find people for negative or harmful reasons. My information is meant to help bring about goodness, not evil. If you are doing a people search to try to find a lost ancestor, to find an old friend, to reunite with a sibling, etc., then this is the right website for you. I will do my best to assist.
Okay, let’s get started. The most important thing in searching for someone is to be logical about your process. The best advice is to keep a notepad and then write down information as you gather more and more information. To search for people you need to be methodical like a detective.
Here are some important questions as you begin your free people search:
Do you have the correct full name or names?
Do you know the last known location or address?
Do you have any other information, such as known associates, former employment, and organizations that the person belongs to?
Write down everything that you know that might be helpful.
Everybody’s situation is different, so I will start with the most direct method to search for people for free:
If you have the full name of the living person and the last known location (in America), you should look up the public library in that city and call the reference desk or reference department. Be nice and tell the librarian that you are trying to search for people for free and would like to know if the librarian can help. Ask the librarian to look in the local telephone directory and the city directory for you.
You can find public libraries in any city by using an Internet search engine like Yahoo! or Google.
If you only have a last known address (you will need the full address for this tip), you can ask the librarian in the particular city to do a reverse address look up for you using the city directory.
