Find School Classmates

In order to find an old classmate or long lost friend, you must first get yourself in to the detective frame of mind. You will need to make a list of all the clues; concentrate on the where, the who, and the when. Begin where you left off. Finding a classmate or old friend using this avenue is as easy as recalling an old memory. Simply remembering the last place this person lived is usually a great place to start. Once you've got the places down, come up with a list of people's names to people you both knew. This will often times prove to be extremely helpful. Once you've finished all your detective work, it is time to move on to the next step.

Gather your list of clues and first try to contact the friends you had in common. If they are unable to shed any light on the whereabouts of your friend, you will need to get more in-depth with your search. We all know researching public records is one way to go about finding someone we once knew. However, the process is extremely involved and could take anywhere from several months to a year to complete. Faced with such a lengthy project, the most determined person will eventually lose interest with the lack of immediate results.

The Internet offers many online businesses that specialize in doing the same people research at a fraction of the time. A fee is usually assessed at the beginning of the search, but the desire to find school classmates or friend from back in the day may be well worth the cost. Some websites even offer a refund if no information is found.

If you aren't quite ready to spend money on your search, the Internet is also full of free search engines designed to find people who have online accounts, the most famous one of course being Google.com. Many people going through the same searching process find this to be a great first step. Good information can be found using this type of research such as mailing addresses and even phone numbers.

Try to keep it as simple as possible as to not get too overwhelmed. You will soon find out that the time invested was well worth the effort.

For many of us, high school was a time of self-exploration and learning, friendships were a large part of that experience. College was a time for experimenting and maturing, our friendships from college endure in our memories as we smile reminiscing of some crazy times. Many of the bonds that we create growing up fade due to the demands of adulthood, parenthood or job demands. Losing touch with a friend from your past was once a part of life due to lack of location resources. Gone are the days when we use a phone book to find someone or make endless phone calls to friends of friends to reconnect with that special person. Not even organized and well funded alumni associations can be relied upon to have accurate information or they are limited in the information that can be released.

Some of us need to reconnect with friends from the past to plan a class reunion, to plan an alumni party or maybe to announce a school alumni event. Curiosity is another factor that compels us to locate friends. How many times have you wondered what an old boyfriend or girlfriend is doing now? You might wonder if they're married or have kids or even if they're happy. However, I think the single biggest factor in wanting to reconnect with a friend from the past, is to share some of the good times with those friends again. To get a slice of your easier childhood. These are the friends with whom you shared an informative part of your life, it's wonderful to continue to know them forever, even if you might have lost contact for a few years.

The Internet is by far the most effective way to locate a lost friend. Using search engines and social networking sites are the most common routes in which to start. However, in the last few years, sites such as: classmates.com or reunion.com have been the growing choice to locate an old classmate, simply sign up and search for your school and year. Whether or not that friend has registered with one of these school locater sites, you still have a good chance of finding someone who does know where that friend is now.

Growing too, is a new Internet idea used to locate classmates; alumni search. Alumni associations for colleges and universities are now creating websites geared specifically to keep its classmates in touch with one another. Along with finding friends, many of the alumni associations have business postings for networking and photos from the past.