Librarian People Search

(Note: This is the 2nd page in this series. For the 1st page, Click Here: SEARCH FOR ANCESTRY)

7) As you get more and more involved in your genealogy search, try to join local genealogical societies and learn about the tips that may help you with your own search.

Okay, where should you start with a genealogy search?

Start with your own family. Talk to everyone that you know in your family and take good notes. Do not trust everything as factual because memories may fade and they may offer you wrong information. Once you are through interviewing your family, you should look through old letters and memorabilia from the past. Such items may reveal pertinent information. For example, some people have an old family bible, which lists all the names of the people in the family that have used the same bible.

Once you are through with those resources, you need to head to your local library.

What can the library do for you in your search for family history?

The bigger the library, the better resources will be and you will be helped that much more. The first resource is the census records. Census records are government records done every ten years on the entire population of the United States. Basically, the government pays people to go from door to door to ask questions about the family and the information is recorded on paper for that household.

As far as accessing those records, because of privacy issues, only census records of seventy-two years old and older are open for research, making the latest available census record is the 1930 census record. With the earliest census record going back to 1790, though not all records are available back that far. Census records are on microfilm, which will have to be searched using a microfilm reader. However, many libraries have access to online databases for genealogical research and those same records are on the computer. It is all up to you as to which style of genealogy searching you prefer.

On a census record you will find information that will list the head of the household at the time, everybody’s age and among other information that varied from state to state, depending on the questions asked during the particular census.

After you have some names and dates of deaths, you should look through the obituaries for those relatives. The city in which the relative passed away in should have a newspaper that will have the obituary posted.

Contact the U.S. Social Security Office for the death index list. Perhaps your local library may have access to this list. On it you will be able to trace you ancestor who passed away in specific year. The record will list some personal information relating to the person who passed away. Tell them that you are doing a genealogy search and they will be more willing to help you.

To find more information on a particular relative in your search for family history, you may want to look up the birth certificate, the marriage license, and the death certificate on the person. Not everything will be available if the information goes back too far, as record keeping was not too good in the early days of America’s history.

Here are some other resources to consider as you embark on your genealogical journey:

1) Church records.
2) Military records.
3) Immigration and naturalization records.
4) Land and tax records.
5) Cemetery and funeral home records.
6) Federal and state archives.
7) The Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) Library.
8 ) Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
9) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah.
10) The Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Tags: SEARCH FOR FAMILY HISTORY

A people search can be a search for ancestry, which is really a genealogical search. This kind of searching is one of the most popular hobbies for many people, and it can be a passion that leads to years and years of fulfilling research. Recently, I helped someone at the library start a search for ancestry and I saw the pleasure in her eyes when she found about her great grandmother’s family. Performing an ancestor search is great fun; family history can reveal so much about who we as a person in the present.

So, why do people want to know about their ancestors? Actually, the question should be, why wouldn’t anyone want to find out about their ancestors? For many, there is great satisfaction in retracing one’s roots and going back to the forefathers and rediscovering how one’s life really got started. Along the way, the discovery can yield very interesting facts. There type of people search can bring some people a lot of joy and satisfaction, which can be quite an addiction.

What do you need to start a genealogy search or an ancestor search?

The number one thing is desire; desire is everything when it comes to looking up one’s family history. This sort of people search is very different. It is one of those projects that will not be resolved with one trip to the local public library or one search through the records. Rather, it is like a trip through time that will require many stops along the way.

Okay, so you are ready with your desire and enthusiasm. Now, you will need a notebook and something to write with to begin the journey.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you record your genealogy search information:

1) Write all last names in capital letters. Everyone in your family history should have the names all capitalized. This is a good idea because you will sometime run into the problem down the road of not knowing which is the first name and which is the last name.

2) Record all names, even nicknames and alternate spellings. When you are deep into your ancestor search, sometimes the records will not have the correct spelling, and sometimes the name will have a nickname in the file.

3) When writing dates, make sure to write out the months in your genealogy search. Do not use numbers exclusively. For example, 01/10/1950 can be interpreted as both January and October. If you records bring you back to Europe, those dates will be written differently and that will inevitably lead to confusion after a while. Save yourself the trouble and write out the months. You do not want to confuse your family history information, mixing one date for another.

4) Once you have collected information on your family history, begin to keep track of where and what you found. It may be the case that you will have to go back to a previous source to do further research and you will want to know where you found such information. An ancestor search can take on a life of its own and you will want to know that you can rely on your notes.

5) Keep a pedigree chart of all your information and write down all the people that you have uncovered in your family tree. The following information should go on the chart: date and place of birth, date and place of marriage, and date and place of death.

6) Keep everyone in family groups. It is a good idea to separate families into groups so that you do not get confused as who belongs to what family.

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Tags: Genealogy

Next, try searching for the person’s school’s website. Educational institutions try very hard to keep updated information on its people, both present and past. You will be surprised to know that many educational institutions can help you find addresses and find phone numbers, including help with free phone number reverse look up.

Some schools list the names of people in the graduating class on a website because people often return to their high school reunions. Furthermore, most school’s reunion committee tries to keep taps on everyone in their class -with addresses, phone numbers and free phone number reverse look up. This also applies to alumni associations of colleges and universities.

For colleges and universities, it is very important to keep track of its alumni for donation purposes. If the subject of your people search attended and graduate from a specific college or university you might consider exploring the athletics department to see if they happen to know of the name, maybe you can tips on a free phone number reverse lookup. Sometimes people have a soft spot of their school’s athletics program and have become donors and financial supporters. Also, it might be helpful to check with the academic program or department from which your subject studied. You just never know where a solid lead can from, so try everything. A former teacher or professor might help you come up with an address and phone numbers.

If you can narrow down to a particular county or city, you can try to find addresses and find phone numbers by looking through the public records kept at the county court or at city hall. There maybe some records there that will give you a solid lead. For example, the person may have had a divorce, a decision on a lawsuit, anything relating to legal matters that were made public.

If the person you are looking for has a criminal record of any kind, even a minor arrest where the person had to spend a night in jail, this kind of information can be very helpful. Nowadays, many counties in America have their criminal records made public on the Internet. You can do a Google or Yahoo! search for the particular county and their sheriff’s department.

Once there you can do a search for the particular individual. Arrest records will provide quite a bit of information, such as the address, phone numbers, and date of birth, etc. There is also a photo at the time of the arrest, a mug shot. If the information is not provided online, you might consider calling the particular Sheriff’s office and see what the procedure is for obtaining such information.

If you have someone’s name and address, you can usually find the telephone number and vice verse, including a free phone number reverse look up. If you have the phone number, you can usually find the address associated with the phone number. There are many ways to do a reverse search for an address or for a phone number. City directories are great for reverse address to reveal phone numbers. You can find city directories at the local public library.

Tags: FREE PHONE NUMBER REVERSE LOOKUP

To perform a reverse look up by address, you have to understand that Each of us has to have a place to live, and more than often those locations are recorded somewhere, even when we move around. To find people, especially to find addresses and phone numbers, you need to be diligent.

The best starting point for a reverse look up by address is to begin with the last known address, if not that, then the city and state, and if not that then at least the state. You need a geographical location to start your search in order to save some time. To find people you really need to start with a specific location, whereas “anywhere” will lead to “nowhere fast.”

Here is something that many people do not realize. We humans are creatures of habit and we like the familiar. Most people do not move around that often, if at all. In most cases people will stay in the same state or same city, maybe just a few miles away from where we grew up. You really can find people!

Of course, there are the exceptions where your subject moves around quite often and so you probably will have to do some work to find an address. In any case, you can usually find an address if you focus in on a particular city or state, the same goes for phone numbers.

If you know the city where your subject was last living, then try calling the local public library; the library can help you find people. The reference librarian can help you to look through the city directory. If it has been a few years, maybe the library will have an older city directory. Who knows? Maybe the librarian can find the address and phone number for you and it will take no time at all.

You may be asking, “Why do I want to find an old address?” Think of finding the person’s present address as the last piece in a puzzle, and it starts with the first address. Once you can secure a former address that is within the period of a few years, you can do several things, including a reverse lookup by address.

First, you can contact the present resident to see if he or she knows anything about the previous person. For example, if someone sold their house, the current owner may know what happened to the former owners.

Second, you can write to the local postmaster and ask for an “address correction request” on the particular person and address.

And third, you can look through the public records in that city to see if there are any clues as to where the person went. When doing an address search, it is so important to establish a trail to follow.

If you can get a solid lead like a former address, you are well on your way to finding a great deal of information on the person. Once you find the address, you will be able to search the public records for that area and information will start flowing for you.

Here are some more ways to find addresses and find phone numbers:

Find the subject’s former classmates, former coworkers, former neighbors, anyone from the subject’s past that may be able to give you solid leads as to where he or she may be living presently. For example, if you know where the subject attended high school, there may be a chance that you can get a hold of a classmate from that class, maybe even a best friend of the subject.

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Tags: REVERSE LOOKUP BY ADDRESS

(Note: This is the 2nd page of this series. For the first page, Click Here: FIND INFORMATION ON PEOPLE)

To find out about people, you will perhaps need to find an obituary in the newspaper. For that, you will need the specific death dates. Usually, the obituary will be published a few days after the death. The information in the newspaper will vary, but more than often you will get names of surviving family members and sometimes even names of friends, in addition to the cause of death.

To find out about people in a genealogical search, obituaries are very important for clues and are valuable information. But keep in mind that not every small newspaper has been archived. For example, the Los Angeles Times is archived online and is accessible through major libraries. However, a small newspaper located in the outskirts of Kansas may not have the same access. The bad news is that records of smaller city newspapers may not have survived the years; no one archived those records. Furthermore, if those old newspapers do exist, it may be on microfilm, just rolls and rolls identifiable by months and years. There most likely will not be any sort of indexing where you can find an article or obituary on someone simply by looking up the name of the individual. This does make doing a people search a little more challenging.

To find out about people, you will simply need to find the dates first. And if you are out of the area, the reference librarian at the local public library will search for you, if you are nice and patient with your request. For example, if you provide the date of death and if it was published in the particular local newspaper, you will find the obituary; the librarian will get you the information. Furthermore, if you know that the subject of your people search made the front page of the local newspaper on such and such date, librarian can also pull up that article on the microfilm for you.

Larger public libraries and university libraries will have paid Internet resources (databases), which may help to you with your people search. For example, many public libraries and university libraries have subscriptions to “Ancestry” that you can use for free in the library. This resource could help you to locate census information on your subject’s family, which will give you vital leads.

Lastly, libraries will have other intangible resources to help you find people for free. For example, you could check out a book on how to do an ancestry search, a book on how to look up records, and so much more. Books are great for pointing people in the right direction. Furthermore, libraries will also have training for this sort of thing. For example, many larger public libraries will have a genealogy department and that department will hold training sessions on how to do an ancestor search.

If you want to find out about people and your project is going to be an involved project, the best advice is to get to know your local librarian. Librarians and libraries are invaluable resources for you –and it is all FREE!

Tags: FIND OUT ABOUT PEOPLE

If you want to find information on people and are doing all the detective work yourself, one of the first places you should visit is your local library. Depending on where you live, there may be several kinds of libraries and resources available to help you with your free people search.

There are many kinds of libraries that can help you find information on people, including grade-school libraries or media centers, to city libraries and university libraries. For a free people search, you need to visit the city or county library (the public library), and if it is within distance from where you live, visit a college or university library (the academic library). And for some of you who are fortunately enough to live close to the Library of Congress or the National Archive, you have the best of all worlds.

The public library and the academic library will offer you a great deal of research help, including assistance from librarians like myself. And the best part is that you will not need to pay any money.

Useful tools to help you find information on people would be things like the city directory, the phone directories, the reference books and books that you can check out, archived newspapers, and the computer resources (databases). Of course, the reference librarian could also give you some pointers that you might not have considered.

As mentioned previously in another section, city directories are great in that they can help you to find people by address. Just look up a street address and the city directory will tell who is living there. Of course, if you are in a small city, the public library will more than often only have the local city directory.

Now, if you have access to the Library of Congress, you could have access to almost all major cities in America, including international city directories. Let’s say that you are trying to find information on people who are abroad, this would be a very helpful resource. The international city directory found at the Library of Congress will tell you exactly who is living on what street address in a foreign city.

Larger public libraries will have phonebooks for surrounding cities, so you might try that. For example, if you live outside of Omaha, Nebraska, your local library may not have the phonebooks for surrounding cities in Nebraska. However, a trip to the public library in Omaha will give the resources to phonebooks that the local library may not have.

Most larger public libraries and academic libraries will have old newspapers, probably on microfilm, which you can look through if you know certain information about the subject in your people search. For example, a news article on your subject might give you a lead that you did not know before, such as the name of a best friend.

Newspapers also have obituaries for most published deaths in the surrounding area, going back to most of the 20th Century. If you know the city, call the reference librarian at the local library and he or she may help to do an obituary search for you.

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Tags: FIND INFORMATION ON PEOPLE

(Note: This is the 3rd page in this series. For the 1st page, click here: SEARCH FOR PEOPLE FOR FREE.)

Okay, if those tips did not get you any closer to your people search, you now have to dig deeper. How do I find people? There are really three options:

1) You can do you it all yourself:

How do I find people? Yes, you can begin in earnest and work methodically like a detective and follow the clues. Every person living in society leaves clues behind. You just have to find the clues and follow one piece of the puzzle to the next and finally reach the culmination of ending your people search successfully –and happily. Simply read each of the sections that I have provided and follow every lead possible. And don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter where I will offer more tips –free, of course.

2) You can get assistance:

How do I find people? Yes, records are everywhere out there, from the national level to the local level, depending where and what records exit for your search. The key is getting to the records. For example, if you live in Phoenix, Arizona, it would be rather challenging to go to Tallahassee, Florida to search the state’s records at the state courthouse. Instead, for very little money (measured in importance, value and assistance in your people search), you could purchase the right to access paid databases that will help give you the answers you seek. These professional people have purchased the records and have compiled everything into convenient resources for you to access instantly. Of course, you have to know who is legitimate and who runs a scam. Please look at my reviews.

3) You can hire a professional investigator, a P.I.:

How do I find people? If you are a fan of Magnum or Jim Rockford (Rockford was my favorite!), among others, you can hire your own P.I. to help you with your people search. Jim charged $200 a day, plus expenses. I do not know what real private investigators charge nowadays, but if you can afford it then go for it. Just type in the city that you are interested in starting your people search into a search engine and look for a private investigator. They are regulated and have licenses (remember how Jim Rockford always had problems with his license?), so it is probably the best to look for particular P.I. associations. Here’s an example:

los angeles, california, private investigator association

Or

los angeles, california, private investigator

You can do it! With perseverance and with logical steps, you can absolutely do a people search successfully. Think of it is something similar to solving a puzzle or a mystery. If you want to find a lost relative, if you want to find your natural parents, if you are looking for a lost buddy from years back, or maybe you want to search into your family’s history (a genealogical search), I will try my best to help you. On this site I have gathered together a great deal of information for you, resources that will give you access to what you ultimately want: happiness at the end of your people search.

Tags: HOW DO I FIND PEOPLE

(Note: This is the 2nd page of this series. For the 1st page, Click Here: SEARCH FOR PEOPLE FOR FREE)

This is the great thing about city directories. They also list names and telephone numbers for people (when possible) by the address. Another helpful thing with city directories in a people search is that often, a library will keep several years of a city directory, sometimes they can go back quite far. Of course this is not free online people search, but it is close to it

Sometimes the chances are much better to find people in an older city directory if the person has moved. Telephone directories cannot keep up with people who move, in addition to the problem of unlisted numbers. More on using the city directory in your people search later.

Okay, if you are still reading this then that means that you did not get anywhere with the telephone directory and the city directory method in your people search. Or maybe it was that method does not apply to your search.

Here is my next tip for free online people search:

You can use the Internet. You can do a free people search with the main search engines like Yahoo.com and Google.com. Just type in the state, the city, and then the full name: You never know until you try.

Here is an example:

Florida, Miami, john a smith

If the person has a very common name, you will most likely get quite a number of results. You will need to try to narrow it down as best as you can and then write the information down and contact each person to see if there is a match.

The last direct tip for free online people search:

If the person has a presence on the Internet and is somewhere out there somewhere in cyberspace, then you could take your people search to anther direction. Using the major search engines, you can look for websites, blogs, postings, e-mail addresses, and other Internet trails. Who knows? Maybe the person you are looking for has a personal website or a blog online. Try these examples:

e-mail address, john a smith

website, john a smith

blog , john a smith

forum, john a smith

message board, john a smith

If you have personal information about the person, such as the school he or she graduated from or the field of employment, there types of people searches sometimes can lead you right to the person. For example, if the person is an artist, he or she probably has a website about art in cyberspace. Be creative and try these free online people search methods.

For example:

art, john a smith

artist, john a smith

painter, john a smith

Keep playing around with the various search engines and try every kind of search that you can think of to move your people search along. Do not for get about www.msn.com, www.ask.com, www.altavista.com, and www.dogpile.com, among other search engines.

Remember, the key to search engines is to keep the phrases short and give it some kind of order, such as a filing system. All a search engine does is to look for specific matches or close matches to what you typed into the search field. And don’t forget that there are international versions of some of the search engines, such as a Chinese language version of Google, and a German language version of Yahoo!, among other languages. If your person has moved to Germany, maybe you want to search for him or her using the German version of Yahoo!. [You have reached the end of page two of this section.

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Tags: FREE ONLINE PEOPLE SEARCH

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.

Click Here to go to the Next Page: FREE ONLINE PEOPLE SEARCH

Tags: SEARCH FOR PEOPLE FOR FREE