You’re desperately trying to get in touch with a long-lost friend, and things are starting to seem hopeless. Here are the steps to take to make it easier. Keep reading for the most effective person lookup tips online.
1. Use a Background Check Service
A background check service can be beneficial no matter who you’re looking for. These sites are also known as people finders and will comb the web at light speed. If any details about the person are publicly available, you’ll find them.
Finders generate reports when you search for people online. Report details might include your friend’s social media info, a phone number, address history, and email. Since you’re only going to be performing one search, sign up for any free trial offer.
2. Reverse Search
You can perform this type of search to find more info if you have an email or a phone number. Try to recall as much about the person as you can. It won’t be easy if some time has passed. Talk to mutual acquaintances or friends. If the number you’ve saved as theirs is current, a reverse phone lookup service will show it. If this works, you’ll save quite a bit of effort.
3. Niche Sites for Hobbies and Interests
You can find helpful details on niche sites for friends, hobbies, businesspersons, interests, and other groups. For this to work, you need some idea about where your long-lost friend could be now and what they might be doing.
Niche or networking sites can provide sufficient data to get an idea of your old friend’s whereabouts. If you have an old address or their number, you might get additional information, like an email address they recently used. It’s a bit like playing detective: you get some clues and use them to get more until you finally catch your suspect!
4. Look Back
Consider how and where you and your friend met the first time. Was it at work? What was their job or niche? As the biggest social media for professionals, LinkedIn is worth a shot. Check out alumni groups on Facebook if you met your friend at school. Also, look up Facebook groups of people from church or a high school you went to together.
Talk to any partners or relatives of the person you’re still in touch with. They might give you more information to go on.
5. Search Free Records
BRBpub is a nifty service you can use to search public directories without paying a dime. For this to work, all you need is to recall their last location. This is what you should begin with. It would help if you had something concrete to base your lookup on to help narrow results down. If you’re able to link a job, a school, or an organization they were in, you’ll get even farther.
6. Instagram and Twitter
These social networks aren’t popular as people find them, but they’re worth trying too. Again, having an old phone number will help. Your friend might have linked their account to it even if it’s not current. Instagram and Twitter can also be used to track someone down based on a previous mailing address, an old job, relatives or friends, or the high school they went to.
7. Search Public Records
If you know where they were born, you might find out where they live now. You can search public records for name change certificates, marriage and divorce certificates, criminal records, death certificates, etc. All you need is their name and birthplace.
If in doubt, the US Center for Health Statistics is a great starting point. You might also get valuable details from your friend’s state’s department of vital records.
Also read: How To Get A Boyfriend? Useful Tips To Attract A Guy
