It is difficult to stay in touch with a long-lost friend, especially after years in which there has been no contact or communication between friends and family members on either side. However, there is a key phrase when looking for a person who has been dear to you in your past, "Never stop looking".
Steps
Step 1. Try to remember their first name and possibly their middle name (s)
This is your starting point. The surname may be misleading in some cases, as they may be married, divorced or adopted and may therefore have changed their name since the last time you saw them. They could be among those people who have legally paid the government to change their first and last names and this path would be impossible to trace using only essential search methods. Write down everything you remember about your friend, such as their date of birth, their middle initials, even hobbies and interests, as this could give you a good lead to follow in tracking them down.
Step 2. Get in touch with other people who knew the person you are looking for
Ask them when was the last time they saw them, spoke to them or any other personal information such as their last known email address or telephone number. Please note that they may not provide you with this information, due to your friend's preferences. It may seem obvious but it can be helpful to dig deep into your diary to see if you have written anything there that can be traced back to them and that you have forgotten.
Step 3. Search Facebook if they have an account
You can search by your school name, their name or email address. The search can be filtered according to age, height, number of children, gender, distance based on the postal code and other useful information. Other social networks like Myspace and Bebo are other excellent sources for finding old friends. Consider LinkedIn, a social network for professional workers.
Step 4. Search the free people search engines
This will save you money and provide you with a lot of important information.
Step 5. Post a message on a free people search bulletin board
These sites consist of message boards that are moderated by "search angels" or volunteers with special people search tools. Make a request and they will search for you.
Step 6. Search websites about interests, hobbies and occupations
At the beginning of this article, you were told to write down your friend's hobbies and interests. Searching the internet, there are forums and websites dedicated to a huge amount of clubs, companies and interests. So again, using people search boards, if you have a vague idea of where that person lives and what they like to do, try searching for a website on the subject. Likewise, your friend's job occupation can give you a lead: there are message boards and forums for different professions, from nurses to law enforcement, so that you have another area you could take into. consideration.
Step 7. Use the electoral rolls
I am not aware of the system in the US but, for those living in the UK, doing an electoral type search is the next best move if you have exhausted all the resources listed above. There are three ways to search the electoral roll. For free, you will have to go to the municipal offices and search the electoral register. Using the other two ways you will need to pay an outside company to do the work for you. This will involve calling a pay phone number where a person searches while you are on the phone or you will have to submit your details, pay a registration fee and you will be contacted with the results. Pay no more than five euros for a short poll and check the ratings to make sure the service is serious.
Advice
- Try joining your old school Facebook groups or search for your friends in them.
- There are several services for finding people and in case you decide to use a professional service to look for your old friend, make sure it is specific to the region you live in and the region your friend lives in.
- If you are looking for an old friend of yours in the UK, there are affordable professional services that will find your friend for you. If you want to find it on your own, consider using marriage records. If your friend is a woman, it can be helpful to know where she got married and what her last name is now.
- In some graduation ceremonies, there are lists of universities that students have planned to go to and scholarships that students have won. Through them, you will have a general idea of where the people you are looking for have gone.
Warnings
- Expect different reactions: since they may hold a grudge against you because of past experiences and may have cut ties with you for a reason, they may want to cut with the past and don't feel like reconnecting or they may become your friends again..
- There is an important warning about registering with Classmates.com. Once paid to register, the registration will be automatically renewed and is known to be a registration from which it is very difficult to unsubscribe.
