In this article I’ll explore what criteria you can use in order to search for someone’s information.

Search by name

You can find the following information if you know at least the person’s full name:

• address
• email address
• phone number
• public records information

In my experience, this is the most common criteria by which people search. For a reason. Some are looking for a close relative, some for old friends, some to do a background check.

Search by address

You can find the following information if you know at least a physical address:

• name of each person living on that address
• the land line phone number of each person living on that address

There are various reasons why someone would do a reverse address search.

Search by Phone

Also a very common type of search many people do. For what reasons? Prank calls mainly. And curiosity.

You can find the following information if you know at least a phone number:

• The name of the person who owns that phone number
• The address of the owner of the phone number

Search by email address

Who owns a particular email address? The number one reason people do this type of search: curiosity.

You can find the following information if you know at least an email address:

• A social networking profile belonging to a person who used that email address to register, you usually find a person’s full name there
• Address, phone (it’s very rarely to find this information just from an email address alone)

You know what’s the beautiful thing here? Let’s say you know a phone number and you find the full name of the owner. Once you did that, you can now search by name and eventually find his address.

Same thing if you search by email.

Knowing by what criteria you can search is very, very powerful because of this.

What about some tools to search? Check out this list of 25 free people search engines for a start.

Related posts:

1. Is it Hard to Find Someone by Their Name Only?
2. Search for People by Name – 4 Tips

You’ll be amazed to find the amount of information some background check services can provide for free.

That information may include:

• associated names
• history of locations where the person lived
• list of relatives and their age

Let’s start.

Find Associated Names

This is especially useful if you’re looking for a female person. Why? If she’s married, you can find her maiden name this way.

Background check services that provide this feature for free:

• People Finders

• Melissa Data, example of search results:

Find Cities/States where the person lived

Most background check websites provide this feature for free. It helps in identifying whether the person you’re looking for is the ‘right one’ since you probably know at least one location where he or she lived.

They also use this as a teaser in order for you to get some more information which includes the exact addresses (this isn’t free, of course)

Background check services that provide this feature for free:

• All of the above
• US Search
• Intelius , example of search results:

Find a list of a person’s relatives and their age

Most services provide only the first thing. Some of them, however, also give out the relatives age too! Luckily, more and more background check websites follow this practice. This is a great thing for all, in my opinion. You can get more information for free and decide whether it is worth to invest into getting their full report. They get more business and more satisfied customers in return.

Background check services that provide this feature for free:

• People Finders, example of search results:

• Melissa Data

Most free people search engines aren’t 100% free. But, as you can see from the examples above, most paid people search engines are not 100% paid either.

*All pictures on the post are random screenshots from the websites presented above.

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1. Best Background Check Services For 2009

Here are the ‘people search options’ of some amazing social networking websites. You can use them to locate friends online and also trace people (hopefully, for good purposes):

7. Tagged

Quick facts:

• Tagged currently has over 30 million users worldwide
• Most of its users are outside of US

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• You can search by name, user name and email address
• Think of what was your friend’s nickname and enter it there if you can’t find him via his real name or email
• Take a look at the advanced search options, you can also search by age there

6. Bebo

Quick facts:

• Most popular in Ireland, UK
• Over 40 million users
• They’ve been bought by AOL in 2008

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• You can search for a user’s videos except for first and last name
• Write as much information as possible in the search box, they don’t have advanced search options

5. Hi5

Quick facts:

• Over 60 million active members
• Most popular in Latin America

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• Narrow your search results (age, country)
• You can search by email, just enter the email address there

4. Twitter (registration is required)

Quick facts:

• You need to be registered to access their ‘find people’ option
• One of the fastest growing websites
• 25 million users

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• They still don’t have advanced system for searching for people
• Most people use user names, so enter your friend’s nickname here

3. MySpace

Quick facts:

• Still one of the most popular social networking sites around
• Over 100 million users
• Owned by NewsCorp

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• They have very user friendly search engine, you can search by name, user name, email
• Search by last or first name only if your friend’s first/last name is rare
• Use the email search option, enter your friend’s email address there

2. Facebook

Quick facts:

• The most popular social networking site
• 350 million active users online
• Most likely, you can find most of your friends there

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• You can search by email address
• Import your contact list so Facebook will see whether your friends have an account there (it will search by email)

1. Linkedin

Quick facts:

• Business-oriented social networking site
• Over 50 million users worldwide
• People post a lot career information there

Search Results Example:

Tips when searching:

• Linkedin is a business-oriented website, so you can search by company, industry and so on. You need to register to do that, though
• In case your friend worked in a particular company, you can search by company, find the people that currently work there and ask them whether they know something about your friend

In this post, I would like to share with you my opinion on whether it is hard to find more information on someone (for the purposes of reconnecting with him or doing a background check) if you only know his name.

By name I mean the FULL NAME. If you know someone’s first or last name only, then it is almost impossible for you to find more information on him (except if his first or last name is VERY, VERY rare.)

Anyway, let’s get started.

There are over 6 billion people in this would. Thus, the chances of someone sharing the same full name with the person you’re looking for is pretty huge.

This pretty much summarizes my point. Let’s say you try and use the WhitePages to find someone’s address, for example. You enter his full name there and come up with 8 results.

8 results, 8 different addresses. Probably 8 different states. How are you going to know which is the right one?

Well, I would guess the reality is that you know at least SOMETHING more on the person you’re trying to locate. Maybe an anecdote of his past or a name of a relative.

If you don’t have another more precise criteria to search by (as an address for example, or maybe a phone number or an email address) then use a brute force approach.

Try to call all the numbers there and ask whether the person you’re trying to locate lives there by telling even minimal information you know about him.

This is a bit inefficient since you don’t know the nature of the person you’re talking with, so he might give you false information or be very reluctant to give you any information at all. You can further persuade him by telling him the reason WHY you’re asking. People are much willing to do something when you tell them a reason why you’re asking them to do that thing.

Is there an easier way?

Yes, and that is, finding more criteria to search by. The person’s old address might be a good start. Or his telephone number, email or social security number. You can search by those 4 criteria also. So you have a lot more options to search by except the person’s name.

How do you find that information? Have you considered talking to people you already know, who might know something about the person you’re trying to find or might know some other people who can tell you more information about the same person? Don’t underestimate the power of leveraging people to achieve your aim.

Before using a new resource (like the numerous people search sites that exist), try seeing whether you got the maximum out of the resources you already know about.

Related posts:

1. By What Criteria Can You Search for People?

I will suppose you know at lest the full name of the person you’re trying to find more information about. Seriously, this is a MUST if you ever expect to have some results in locating someone by their name. A first or last name only can give you some leads, but often times that is not enough. Anyway, let’s start.

1. Use various people search engines

You have various types of people search sites. Some of them are free and can give you basic information (current address/phone) while the more advanced ones are not free, but cheap and provide more advanced information (history of addresses, relatives and so on.)

I highly recommend you use every type of people search engine available. That way you increase the chances you can find additional information from someone’s name only.

2. Before searching, familiarize yourself of what you can use

I’ve shared with you some people search engines above. The thing is, these can not only search by name, but by various other criteria. For example, you can search:

• by address
• by phone number
• by email address

Why would you want to know this if the only information you currently have is the person’s name?

First, are you sure? Can you eventually find more about someone than just his or her name? You can consult with people you assume should know more information about the person and ask them whether they know something more than the person’s name only.

Second, while you search, you can find even more ‘leads’ or additional information about that person like his old address or telephone number. This is where the real magic comes into place. This is where you can use the features I’ve outlined above so you can run a reverse address or reverse number check and can eventually find even more data!

So the more information you have, the bigger the chances are you can find even more information on someone!

3. Help boards

You have a tremendous number of boards where you can request help. Tell as much information as possible for the person you’re looking for.

This isn’t why I recommend posting on many boards, though. You will have some people trying to help you out and that’s totally fine. The real reason why posting on boards is great is because, that way, you increase the chances of the person contacting YOU instead.

How so? Well, let me ask you something. What was the last time you typed your name into a search engine like Google? Yes, we people perform so-called “ego searches” where we often search for our own name or nickname.

Now, get this: the person you’re trying to search for will probably do this type of search someday. When you post on a message board (open a new thread or post a new post, I recommend opening a new thread) the text you post is usually indexed into Google. So when that person types his or her name into Google, your result will appear! That way he can register on that board too and contact you (this happened many times for many people, believe me.)

If you post on multiple boards, you have better chances of your text appearing somewhere in the results when a person searches for himself. When you write, though, remember to vary the text. Do not copy/paste the same message in multiple boards. That is considered duplicate content and is not going to get you indexed multiple times by Google or other search engine. Vary the text (your “I need help” type of message) but leave the important details same (name, email, etc.)

4. Spell check

This is a short but very useful tip. Most sites do not provide spell checkers for names. So make sure you check whether the full name is correctly spelled (especially if it is a complex name.) One letter wrong and you can come up with 0 results, compared to 17, for example,  if you get the full name right.

Let me explain you something about the people search industry in general and how it works.

How the people search industry works

You’re looking for a friend you haven’t seen for ages. So you decide to either type his name into a search engine or start with typing different keywords into Google like ‘find people’, ‘people search’ and so on.

So you found a people search engine. Maybe it was a free engine or a paid one.

If you found a free engine, then you’ll usually see ‘limited results’ and in order to see the full results, you’ll need to either pay for them or pay for a specific subscription where you can access a database for a limited period of time.

Same thing for the paid engines. The only difference is that you usually don’t have ‘limited results’ here.

The point is, you’re paying for a limited access to a database. That’s the primary business model.

What is exactly a people search software

If you think that a people search software is an offline product where you are given a database of millions of information of people, you’re wrong as you can see from the information above. No company will give out their database in a software so you can access in whenever you want.

If you ever find a software claiming to do a people search, that software will always connect to a remote online database and retrieve the information for free or require you to pay for access.

So far, I’ve been researching and haven’t found any offline people search software and I think there’s no need for such thing at the moment when you have some excellent online resources.

How do I search for people then?

First, familiarize yourself with the different types of people search sites.

Then take a look at some free people search engines. Here’s a list.

There are 2 very powerful concepts you must know about if you want to search for and find old classmates. I’ve outlined them below.

1. Find your classmates directly (via online or offline methods)

More and more people come online. Your old classmate might be a member of some social network like Facebook or a member of another type of community.

So what can you do in order to locate him? Simple. Use Google or Yahoo and type his or her:

• Full name (in case the name is very common try entering the name AND the age together, or the name and the location)
• Username or nickname (if your classmate had a nickname unique to him then this is your best bet

You can also do more accurate search if you have some more confidential information of him like a social security number.

There are also some other types of people search sites you can use except Google and Yahoo.

2. Find your classmates indirectly

This is a harder method, but the long term benefits are huge. It involves contacting other people who might know something about your old school friend.

Let’s say you’re looking for a friend from high school. You can go and find the high school’s alumni website. Then find his generation and contact all the people there asking whether they know something about the person you’re trying to find and if they don’t, ask them whether they can tell you about someone that might know something.

This might take more time than using the first tip but, as I’ve mentioned, has bigger benefits in the long run.

So the tip is, basically, find anyone who you think knows something about your classmate and start asking.

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Are criminals really living in your neighborhood? There are some AMAZING sites that can help you find this out. I’ve done quite a research and made a list with a description. Almost 100% of the sites are free, by the way. Let’s get started.

1. Criminal Searches

Description: Most of these ‘neighborhood watchdog’ services search for only sexual offender. This is a different service. They search for thieves, violent offenders, murderers and con artists. Very, very powerful service. I would say they are maybe #1 in this field.

Example of search results:

2. Family Watchdog

Description: This is the official national sex offender registry. The most reliable service for checking for this type of offense. You can also subscribe to free alerts there, which I consider to be a very good option if you want to keep a close eye at what’s happening in your neighborhood.

Example of search results:

3. Crime Reports

Description: Great site to see what’s going on in your neighborhood in terms of criminal activity. You can then take this data and do further research by entering the incident into a search engine like Google News and so on. Overall, this is an excellent starting point for seeing criminal activity. They also offer an option to separate sexual offenders from all other types of criminals.

Example of search results:

4. Felon Spy

Description: You’ve probably noticed that all of the services above work for United States only. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any decent European criminal search engine (there are attempts to make progress in this area). Felon Spy is one of these websites that is currently searching only on US territory and also have efforts to expand in Europe too. Overall, it isn’t much different from the previous services except for this feature and that’s why I thought they are worth mentioning.

Example of search results:

5. Neighborhood Scout

Description: You have some really interesting statistics here about every neighborhood. What’s interesting is, you can compare two neighborhoods nationwide. They get their statistics from various government agencies and use some complex algorithms to give you really interesting data.

Example of search results:

If you find this article useful, feel free to give it a thumbs up. Also take a look at some other useful articles below.

Allow me to show you some basic and advanced ways to search the entire internet for public records in a specific state or nationwide. You’ll find great databases along the way which can provide you with some amazing information about a specific person.

1. Start with a general search engine

I will guess you’re looking for public records within a specific state (even if you’re not, this step also applies to you.) You need to start with a general search engine in order to familiarize yourself with the different types of public records available in a specific state.

So, for Florida public records, type ‘Florida public records’ into Google and Bing. I recommend you use them both. Take a look at the results and look for sites ending with either .us or .gov (those should be the official sites of the state.) Ignore .com, .net and .org sites for since we want to get our information directly from the source.

Google Search Results for Florida Public Records

In our example (for Florida), I found this site. Perfect!

2. Continue searching using the general search engines & the sites you found in step 1 for a specific type of records

In our example, I found I can obtain different types of records from the above site alone. See if this is also the case for the website(s) you found. If not, then repeat the above step (use Google and Bing), just instead of ‘public records’, enter ‘criminal records’ (this depends on the type of records you’re searching for.) In my example the query would be ‘Florida criminal records’. Again, we look for .us and .gov sites only.

This is an approach to obtain this type of information from the state’s database directly.

However, there are some disadvantages to this approach. Many people report they sometimes don’t get the information, the online search engines of the state are very outdated, the waiting time is too long and so on.

There’s a solution to this, though. Read step 3.

3. Use Private Databases

By ‘private databases’ I mean companies whose job is to collect all of the public record data nationwide in their own database. You can then  invest to access that database (it’s cheap, though.) The advantages here, compared to the previous 2 steps, are:

• Faster access
• Not worrying about providing a reason why you are looking for a specific public record
• In case you have a problem, you’ll have far more superior customer support

Use this approach if you want to search for ALL TYPES of public records on someone.

The best companies of this kind that have regularly updated databases, in my opinion, are US Search and Intelius.

Example of what information you can get about a person from a private database (this screenshot is taken from US Search website, the link is above)

Now, go back and apply the steps. You’ll be able to find the available public records on anyone in United States.

Related posts:

1. Types of People Search Sites
2. Locate Someone Online Without a Problem

Searching for people by social security number is, without doubt, the most simple way to search. Why? Everyone’s social security number is unique, and the information you’ll receive is guaranteed to be related to the owner of that SSN.

In order to perform a SSN search, you need to follow few steps.

Verify the Social Security Number

If you’re doing a search as an employer, follow these instructions.

If you’re doing a search as an individual, then make sure the number is in the proper format (xxx-xx-xxxx). Also, make sure none of the fields are all zeroes and the first three digits are not above 740. Otherwise, the social security number is invalid.

Search by Social Security Number to see if the person is deceased

You can do this via the Social Security Death Index. There’s no need to enter all the information there but just the social security number.

I recommend you enter the social security number you have here to see if the person you’re looking for is deceased. If not, then we can proceed with the next step.

Forward a letter to the SSN owner

You can do this with the help of the Social Security Administration. Here’s what they have to say:

We will attempt to forward a letter to a missing person under circumstances involving a matter of great importance, such as a death or serious illness in the missing person’s immediate family, or a sizeable amount of money that is due the missing person.

You can read more here. I highly recommend you try this method.

Use Background Check Services

There are some really good background check services that allow you to find more information on someone’s social security number for a cheap price. If you ask me, the best services of this type are:

- Intelius – click on the “Search by SSN” tab

- US Search – locate the text where it writes “for an exact match, search by social security #”

The above companies get their information from various public and private sources. Anyway, you have nothing to lose. They charge nothing if you get no results.

If you’re wondering which service of the above to use, I highly recommend you go with US Search because their customer support is outstanding. They answer you every question and are very helpful. Intelius is also a good service but currently their customer support is terrible. So, US Search would be definitely my choice.

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1. Search for People by Name – 4 Tips