Free
People Search - How To Find People Free
Sharing the
"Secret" to free people search and how to use the internet to
find people free.
Like most
people, I have had family and friends who either slipped
through the cracks of life or through circumstance lost
contact with me. There were times when vital records were
misplaced and needed for some terribly important something or
public records were needed to do something else. We all have
our stories, but end up here on the internet hoping to find
people free. Free people searches are easy to do in a sense, but if a
person can't see around the ideas behind a site they are
using, the information might as well not even be on the web.
Some people who almost never use computers can make themselves open to
being placed and found on the internet in several different
ways, some without a direct connection to the internet
initially. Postal Junk Mail, Telemarketers and news media are some of
the obvious ones. Going to jail, owing child support or being
a licensed beautician are some others.
First, and most
important to finding people free on the internet, NO SOURCE
IS ABSOLUTE!
Search Engines and Getting Started.
Start
out using search engines to find a person by name, add
the location you suspect the person being in or having been in
the past...check the results. Using "Quotations" around your
request will get EXACT results from the search engine (in your
search results, the words John Smith will be together in a
sentence instead of apart on the page) You can add a "+" sign
to add more to the request "John Smith" + Arlington,
VA to get more specific, but generally, you can type in a
simple request like this "john smith Arlington VA"
(without the quotes). If the results are not helpful,
try loosening the search by using just the persons name and
city, then if necessary, even more with just the name.
If
you don't find John Smith on Google, that doesn't mean they
know it all about John Smith. Try MSN Search, then others.
Eventually you will notice two things; the type of results you
get from different types of search engines and which search engines are
using the same results. This is the best way to start your
search because most search engines theses days are updating
constantly or have current public access information, like
newspapers and online news sources.
Dig Deeper and Try Your Luck With Free People Search Sites. When you go looking for free search sites, don't use
complicated terms, be simple and to the point: free people
search, free people searches, find people free, people
searches and so on. Good sites are spread out all over the
place and may show up higher in a search engine when using
different phrases. Usually, you are going to find sites that have
multiple search boxes to search engines or directories and they are all in one spot too.
No running from site to site if you can help it. Others also
have a range of links to other searches or pages of links to
information that might help you directly, usually State or
Country specific.
Another useful
feature of some free people search sites is a forum, blog or
some means of posting your search for the public to find. The
more often you can post, "I'm Looking For John Smith From
Arlington Virginia" on the internet, the more likely someone
who knows John will run into it or John will find it himself,
just don't go giving out too much information like social
security numbers.
While using a free search site, use all the searches possible,
even the email search. You may think that long lost Uncle John
never got into computers, but you might find him to be a big
geek now with several email addresses. The process of going
from one source to the next is to gather information to add or
use in a future search. If you can narrow down a specific area
in a state, that would be perfect. Using public records would
be the next, if not final step if you haven't achieved your
goal by now.
Public Records To Find A Person. You may be thinking that using Public Records is an
obvious way to find someone, but try to be creative in your
public record searches. One cool trick is; a person can be
tracked down by their occupation if they are licensed or
certified by the state they work in. More than half the states
give access to the public to verify if a person claiming
"Licensed" of "Certified" status really is, often to the
extent of revealing either home address or where they are or
have been employed, sometimes both! Court records are often
the same, offering plenty of information that is free to the
public, even if the person didn't commit a crime, some states.
counties and cities will post all public records and results
from court proceedings.
Here's more tips for state
and local searches:
Most sites are different,
be aware that one website might call Vital Records Vital
Statistics or Records Registry. Different states have
different job titles and duties for some of their vital
statistics staff or the departments that handle birth
certificate, divorce certificate, death certificates or
marriage license records. Look harder and not always for the
obvious.
Police Departments and
Corrections Facilities often keep records, some posted, to
any activity and may report on both parties in an
altercation. Maybe Uncle John got his car stolen.
USE YOUR PHONE! Some of
the smaller or limited local sites won't have the
information online, like divorce records, but a phone call
and friendly attitude can often get plenty of info.
Write a letter - for the
same reasons as above.
Local Governments like to
post minutes and records from public meetings including
names and addresses of those involved.
Schools and facilities
often post searches or information they have on people that
they are either looking for or have found. Being smaller
sites it may be something a search engine overlooked.
Moral Here:
Try to be creative in your public record searches
The Difference Between Pay
For Records Sites and Free People Search Sites. Besides money, the biggest difference is that the pay site
probably has databases of public records information on people
that they bought from utility companies and other information
collection sources, while the people search site relies on
information that is publicly accessible from the internet. For instance; InfoUSA licenses it's
information to other popular companies who run directory
and/or search services as well as selling records to the
public. Intelius.com offers limited information on their
partner sites. like Addresses.com, but for detailed or
extensive information, you will be directed to the main site
to pay for a report that may contain accurate or stale
information.
Another difference is between
the types of free sites you'll find is a lot of the popular
sites in search engines are merely gateways to "Pay" sites.
The pages are designed to be search engine friendly but the
search really is to take you to some pay site and all the
links on the first site lead to the pay site. There is no real
content to be found. You can always try them to see how much
they are willing to give for free, but the curse is that some
use the information you give them to make mirrored results,
results that look accurate, making you think you're on to
something.
Perseverance - The Best
Search Assistant. Sometimes searching for something on the internet, like a
great deal on computers, is fun or exciting even. Looking for
a person on the web may feel like work, and it often is, but
you can't let dead ends be dead ends, just corners. I
mentioned earlier that no source is absolute, so don't think
it's over or hopeless if you have only been at it a few hours,
some of us took months to find the right sources to put
together our brother's address and phone number, but in the
end it was done and we are all happier for it.
If you are successful with free searches, GREAT, but
understand, there are some folks who have stayed in such a
place in life that they just didn't end up being placed on the
internet. You may find that a reputable pay site is the only
one who has the answers from a public record source they
bought and if the person you are looking for is important enough,
of course you'll pay. Make sure the pay for search site is certified or verified
somehow so that they have to follow some standards of business before
you purchase anything from them and that they will protect
your privacy. One that provides a "No
Results, No Pay" policy is best.
In the end, use your best
judgment. If you can afford to get it over with, pay now, but for
the rest of us, keep trying until you are certain you have
done your absolute best to exhaust all the free resources that
are available, the person you are searching for might
appreciate it as much as you.
The author is a webmaster and website
designer who owns and operates
Str82u.net and
several other sites dedicated to providing free people search
and access to public records on the internet.
