XooxleAnswers

Whether you're looking for information on a long-lost friend from high school, or your great-great grandfather from Scotland, the internet is the place to turn.  Here are the Top Ten People-Finding Sites on the web.  All sites are free.

 

1.  Google, of course.  Type in a name, hit return, and odds are good you'll find something.  Try it with and without quotes around the name.  Here's a collection of good Google search tips for finding people. 

 

2.  Superpages National White Pages.  Phone book searches used to be limited to one city at a time, but online white pages like Superpages now allow a national search in one fell swoop...just leave "Location" blank for a national search. 

 

3.  Google News and News Archives.  You'd be surprised how many people get their name in the newspaper at one time or another.  A search of news archives can turn up invaluable information, from the last few weeks or the last few centuries.

 

4.  Zoominfo.com does a very nice job of consolidating people find information from a number of sources, and presenting it in an easy-to-digest fashion.  Select "Find People" to get started.

 

5.  Facebook's Friend Finder  is a good way to explore social networking sites.  Also have a look at people searches at MySpace, and the business-oriented LinkedIn networking site.

 

 

One of the best archives available is the aptly-named NewspaperArchive.com.  This is a subscription service, but well worth it.  I use them constantly in my research, and recommend them highly. 

 

6.  The Social Security Death Index (SSDI).  People do die, after all, and the more than 80 million records in SSDI give details on virtually all deaths in the US since 1963.  Expert researchers can try an advanced search on SSDI.

 

7.  Intelius is a commercial service for finding people, but you can do a preliminary search for free, and uncover a surprising amount of information, including relatives of the person you're looking for. If it didn't charge a fee, it just might be number one on this list...it's that good! 

 

8.  Jigsaw is, hands down, the best place to look for business contacts.  Again, it is a fee-based service, but preliminary searches are free, and can reveal important information, like the company someone works for.   

 

9.  MissingMoney.com is an unusual resource, but worth checking (and type your own name in, while you're there).  This nationwide unclaimed assets database contains millions of names of people who have money coming to them.

 

10. Dialog Open Access Whois, which should be a great resource, isn't.  But it's still worth a look.  You can search present and past whois records (domain name registrations) by owner.  In theory, anyone who has a website should show up in this search.  In practice, it doesn't always work. Preliminary searching is free, but there's a fee for a full record. 

 

 

 

 

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