As you go through life you meet a number of people along the way that you get on well with and whose company you enjoy. Nevertheless you somehow lose contact and it is not always easy to find them again. This might be an old school friend, workmate, neighbour, family member or past love. Since the advent of the internet there are a large number of resources available that are free and easy to use and which will help you locate them. Most of these resources are country specific and require as a minimum the name of the person you are looking for. This might seem obvious but may actually prove difficult if the person is a woman who has married and adopted a new surname.

The more global search engines that may help are the google and yahoo web-sites. These are major search engines that cross country borders, however, they are not specifically designed to find individuals. When using either of these search engines it is important that you use quotation marks around the name in order that the whole name is searched for, so "John Smith" for example. This is particularly important since you will receive a large number of sites to check, especially for more common names. It helps if you can provide more details in your search such as the town or city you expect to find the person. Other global sites include facebook and myspace where people post a profile which can be searched using the site search engine. However, you will only find people who have set up a profile

If you have not been successful with the global search engines, you may find the country specific sites useful. In the US there are a number that can be tried. I would suggest that the first one that you try is www.zabasearch.com. This site can search solely on the name of the person but if you have more information this can be used to narrow the search. Similar sites are www.anywho.com and www.whitepages.com which have a similar set-up. However, if it is an old school friend, there are sites specifically set up to trace these. In the US that would be www.reunion.com or www.classmates.com and in the UK www.friendsreunited.com. Also in the UK, the electoral roll is available to search. This is particularly useful if you have an idea of the area in which the person you are looking for is living.

Summary of sites that you may want to visit in your search:
www.google.com
www.yahoo.com
www.reunion.com
www.zabasearch.com
www.anywho.com
www.whitepages.com
www.facebook.com
www.myspace.com
www.classmates.com
www.friendsreunited.com

Learn more about this author, Stephen H.
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