Looking for an old friend or loved one but don't know where to start? Consider the World Wide Web your first choice. Where do you start? Networking and profile sites like myspace, facebook, and friendster are a great place to start. All you need is the person's first and last name. Has it been a while and the person may have gotten married? A friend of mine ran into this problem while looking for an old class buddy and I referred her to Classmates.com, where you can look people up by the school they graduated from and the years they attended.

If you haven't found your person on a friendship networking site, a simple google search might help you find out what they've been up to. Maybe they volunteer for a large charitable organization or have a company of their own. You might be able to get their contact information on the site where you found their name.

Another great place to find someone is through Zabasearch.com, which provides current and former addresses, phone numbers and birth dates.

Depending on who you are looking for, the Internet is a great place to start your search. A college buddy or old best friend would be surprisingly easy to find now that networking sites have become so popular. Best of all, it's free to look! But if your search is more complicated, such as finding your biological parent, it may still be best to hire an investigative professional or try a pay search organization like 1-800-US-Search.

Learn more about this author, H.G. Hess.
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