Photography by Dan Peebles
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Web Exclusive…
Guide to Finding Lost Loves Online
By Christopher J. Gearon, September & October 2004
The Internet makes it easier to track down people you’ve lost touch with, perhaps even an old flame. The trick is to be creative and resourceful. Here are some websites that will help you get started
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Cast a Wide Net
A Google search (or Yahoo or other common search engines) is often a
good place to start if you don't have any information other than the
person's name. In fact, "googling" has become so popular, the
word has become a commonly used verb.
On Google, put the person's first and last names in quotes to indicate
you're searching for a specific phrase (for example, "Jane Doe").
Unless your friend has an extremely unusual name, you're likely to get a
ton of results, so don't give up if you don't see your pal's name
on the first three or four pages. Keep searching, and add search criteria that
you know may still be true—such as city or state. Also, you could enter
the word "funeral" and the person's name into a search engine
(even if they haven't died, someone in their family could have, and this is
the way everyone makes it into the paper). The same thing holds true with the
word "wedding." Check out PC World's tips to get the most
from Google.
It's amazing how much free information exists in public records. To
start digging, stop by Search
Systems, the largest directory of links to free public record databases on
the Internet. Access tons of public documents from court records to marriage
licenses to census records from local, national, and international
databases.
Another great search tool is 411.com. This
compendium of directory assistance tools online includes white pages, yellow
pages, reverse phone and address lookup, and more.
Go Back to School
Two sites used commonly to track down old sweethearts, former classmates,
and others are Classmates.com and Reunion.com. Classmates.com boasts 38 million
members. Gold membership runs $39 a year; basic membership, with limited
features, is free. Reunion.com claims to have 22 million users and costs $36 a
year. These sites require users to register with them, so if the person
you're looking for hasn't registered, you won't find them.
(Likewise, if you don't want to be found by someone else, don't
register.)
But not to worry. There are plenty of other options. To find lost loves from
high school, check out your school's alumni page. Not every school has its
own site, but some tech-savvy grad may have started one that provides updates
on former classmates, their e-mail addresses, and other functions offered by
the fee-based sites. Simply go to any search engine, and type in the name of
your school, with perhaps the city and state it's located in as well.
Ditto for colleges and universities. Or contact your university's alumni
association (experts at tracking people down). If they aren't able to get
contact information, alumni officials may forward a message for you. You may
also want to try sorority or fraternity groups and related sites such as Greekpages.com.
Get Personal
If you know a person's occupation or field, the National Association of
Association Executives' site lets you search more than 6,500
associations representing everyone from accountants to librarians to
veterinarians.
Perhaps you recall that the person you're trying to connect with has a
specific passion or hobby. They may go to chat rooms or post on bulletin boards
to discuss their favorite subject. An easy way to find related websites and
communities is to type the name of the hobby or interest into a search engine
along with the words "community" or "chat" or even
"discussion." One of the largest message board networks is EZBoard.com, which lets you search public
discussion boards by interest. You might also try searching through Google's discussion groups or Yahoo groups for discussion groups on thousands of
topics.
Finally, you might want to try Legacy.com, a site that provides links to
obituaries published by the company's network of newspaper affiliates. You
can search by name, newspaper, or name and newspaper.
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