Free People Search and People Finder Tips. Find People Free Tutorial.

Here are ten free people search and people finder tips to help you find past friends and family members. These tips are provided as a public service from the creators of Skipease Free People Search and 411x411.com Free People Finder - two of the web's most popular people search and public record sites.  A downloadable copy of these tips is available in PDF format at Downloadable Free People Search Tips

Here are 10 free people search, people finder tips along with links to online free people search sites to help you find past friends and family members without paying someone to do it for you. With a little time, effort and creativity, you can find a person without a professional investigator. If you decide that you do need the help of an investigator to find a person, make sure you research the professional qualifications and reputation of the person before you pay any fees or give any personal information to them for a paid people search.

1. WRITE IT DOWN --

Write down everything you know about the person you are looking for, including: past addresses; high school(s) and universities attended; names of family members; hobbies; last name(s); nicknames; job profession(s); organizations involved with, as well as any other personal identifiers that you can remember about the person.

These personal identifiers will help you focus your people search and will often help lead your search efforts. This information can be changed as you move forward with your search. You may also want to keep a list of people searches that you have already used so you don't repeat your efforts.


2. WHITE PAGES FREE PEOPLE SEARCH --

One of your first people searches should be free online white pages. Free white pages allow you to search using various methods like "city and state" searches; "state only" searches or "all states" searches. In addition, you can try last name only searches in situations where the person has an uncommon last name. A last name only search can also help you identify possible relatives of that person to contact. If you don't find what you are looking for online, spend a little money on paid directory assistance.

Free white pages: White Pages Free People Search


3. FREE PEOPLE SEARCHES --

There are some excellent free people searches on the web that typically contain more listings than free white pages. These searches include DA Plus, Zaba Search, ZoomInfo - Business People Search and a few others. If you can't find a person listed on free white pages, you will definitely want to try these alternatives.

Free people searches: People Search or People Finder

Federal and state inmate locators: Inmate Locator

US military locators: Military Locator


4. REVERSE LOOKUP --

If you have a phone number ( but no address ) for a person or you have an address ( but no phone number ), you will want to do a free reverse people search on a reverse lookup site to find the missing information.

Reverse lookups: Reverse Lookup

You can also do a free reverse phone number search, reverse address search or reverse email search by entering them into a search engine like Google or Yahoo to find any web pages that they appear on.


5. MUTUAL CONTACTS --

Contact any mutual friends, colleagues or relations that you share with the person you are looking for. One or more of these shared contacts may be able to put you in touch with the person.


6. PEOPLE SEARCH ENGINES --

Search Engines like Google and Yahoo make great people searches; but don't expect to just enter a name and get your magic answer. This is where the information you wrote down in Tip #1 will come in handy. Use these personal identifiers in your search engine queries to weed out unwanted search results and zero in on the person you are trying to find.

You can find a list of Google search tips and features that will help with your people search at Google Search Engine Tips


7. FREE PEOPLE SEARCH ON SOCIAL NETWORKS --

Online communities and social networks are big and people are publishing more and more information about themselves on these sites, including pictures, location information, educational background, professional background, nicknames and other personal identifiers. You can use these sites to find people free through their online profiles, but you will need to refine your people search tactics, since most people do not post first and last names in online profiles. You may want to search using first names or nicknames along with other identifiers like schools, geographic areas, hobbies and profession(s) to locate a person on these sites. Below is a list of some popular social network sites.

MySpace.com
Friendster.com
FaceBook.com
LinkedIn.com

Wink - Free People Search Engine - Wink is a free people search engine that searches over 170 million people profiles on social networking sites like Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn at once. Wink is one stop free people search for finding people profiles on the major social network sites.

In addition, you may also want to try People Finder Chat for live help with your people searches.

8. FREE PEOPLE SEARCH ON BLOGS --

Blogs are the fastest growing, most up-to-date area of the internet and they provide a lot of information. You can use blog search engines like Technorati to search for people by name, nickname, address or phone number to see if there are any references to them on any blogs.


9. NEIGHBORS --

If you know of current or past addresses for a person, you can do a nearby search to find potential neighbors in the area, who may know the whereabouts of the person you are looking for. Neighbors will often know whether the person you are looking for still lives at the address or when they moved out and where they moved to. In addition, neighbors are sometimes willing to write down and deliver a personal message to the person's address for you.

You can do a nearby / neighbor search by doing a reverse address ( leaving out the specific address number ) to get results for the entire street. The returned addresses that are closest to the person you are looking for are most likely to be neighbors for that individual.

Two excellent reverse address searches are Reverse Address and Reverse Address


10. USE PUBLIC RECORDS FOR YOUR FREE PEOPLE SEARCH --

If the other tips fail, you can always try your luck using the numerous federal, state and local public record searches that are available online. Some of the more popular public record searches, including sex offender registry; tax assessor; unclaimed property; professional license and business-related searches, can be found at Public Record.

Additional free people search and people finder news can be found on our blog at People Search Blog

About Skipease:
Our free People Search and free People Finder search sites have been helping people find people since 1999.

Good luck with your free people search efforts.