Find People

Judy's Tips
Adoption Finders
Find People
Find Missing People
Genealogy Finders

For those of you trying to locate that long lost friend or relative, the internet may be just the tool to help you. There is no surefire way to find someone, so you may have to invest some time and a lot of elbow grease to accomplish the task. Here are some suggestions and web resources that you should use.

Judy's Tips:

Search the Entire Internet
Try AltaVista (www.altavista.com) or HotBot (www.hotbot.com) . Put quotes around the entire name to attempt an exact match. Experiment with variations of the name. For example, try first name, last name; or last name, then first. Don't limit your search to just a nickname, include formal and middle names if you need to.

Try the White Pages ( "people finders" )
Many of these exist. Try your favorite search engines. Basically each agent gets its information from companies that collect data from phone books and other public documents. Most will have you enter as much information as possible. The name, the city and state for the party you wish to locate. Try Yahoo! People Search (people.yahoo.com), Bigfoot (http://www.bigfoot.com/), AnyWho (http://www.anywho.com/) or Switchboard (www.switchboard.com). Be sure to use several varieties of white pages to enhance the possibilities of locating your party.

Personal Web Site Search
Check to see if your party has their own personal web page. Try using try Google, "personal web page" . Results will direct you to many sites for personal web sites. Start the search by using first and last name, most site developers post their contact information on their web page You may also wish to try "whois" search (www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois).

Instant Messaging Services
Gaining in popular usage is what is called instant messaging services: ICQ (www.icq.com), AOL Instant Messenger (aim.aol.com) and MSN Messenger Service (messenger.msn.com) to name a few. They work by maintaining user information directories. These usually are searchable by name or e-mail address. These are available via the service and most likely will require to install software and register yourself. Beware, users sometimes use aliases which we not help your search.

Check Out the Resume Banks
Some of these banks will let you search and some will not. At this time try InstaMatch Resume Database (www.instamatch.com).

Search the Alma Maters
Many organizations such as colleges, corporations, fraternities and sororities publish the names and e-mail addresses of their current and past affiliates on their Web sites.