Finding Family, Friends and Contacts on the Internet
Also see: Genealogy Search Resources and Books from Amazon.
One of the biggest benefits of the internet has been that people can find and reconnect with friends, family and often even lost contacts.
There are many websites offering tools to identify or locate people, ranging from simple name searches, to reverse directory lookups, to genealogical family searches, to comprehensive background checks.
Name searches
Finding people by name search is easiest for most people using major search engines and social media websites.
Google, Bing, Yahoo and AOL are the main search engines in use by most people in our own community.
Facebook is by far the most used social media sites for searching a contact. Linked In is often used and more appropriate for searching individuals for professional purposes.
Reverse lookups
Many companies offer reverse lookup tools.
A few that I've seen listed on various "best" lists include Intelius, PeopleFinders, PeopleSmart and Spokeo.
I've heard also that MyLife serves people interested in monitoring their own background reports.
Genealogical research
Members of my own extended family have located 'lost' relatives in the process of tracing our ancestry, initially relying primarily on Family Treemaker software and later relying primarily on Ancestry.com.
Ancestry.com is the big name for doing genealogy research. Most of our own family genealogy now resides on that site.
FamilySearch.org is another genealogy site, connected with the LDS church. I've heard positive things about it from genealogy friends.
Genealogy.com used to be on par with Ancestry but now basically just offers access to legacy information, mainly forum content.
Background checks
Two leading background check companies worth noting are BeenVerified and Instant Checkmate.
These provide extensive information based on public records, including but .
These sources go way beyond just basic contact and location data, providing extensive background information available from public records. Such reports can be helpful in checking somebody out for personal concerns.
These services generally cannot be used for most business decisions, such as employment or rental matters. There are legal restrictions on the use of such reports that are important to heed and follow.
I've used some of the websites and tools mentioned here, but in naming the ones that I've named I don't imply any evaluation or endorsement.
Services or tools available through websites in these categories generally are not available for free. Some offer reports at a fixed, flat rate cost. Others offer membership type access, typically on a monthly rate basis. These can be worth the money for some, but more that it's worth for others.
Website memberships sometimes charge by recurring payments on a credit or bank card. It's always best to exercise caution in such transactions, and be especially cognizant of any terms of service associated with such engagement.
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