Five Ways to Conduct a People Search Online

In the past, if you were trying to find somebody you either had to hire an investigator or wade through endless paperwork. Today, thanks to the Internet, tracking somebody down is much easier. If you are trying to locate somebody, the Internet can be a very powerful tool. From search engines to social media, finding a specific individual has never been easier. Armed with just a little bit of information, you can use a variety of online sources to quickly track down people almost anywhere in the world. Below are just five ways to conduct an online people search.

Social media

Billions of people around the globe use social media, which makes social media platforms an excellent source for conducting a people search. Facebook is the leading social media platform and its unique search engine lets you track down people even if you have only limited information. For example, you can search for somebody using only an email address. Alternatively, if you know only the person's first name and place of residence, you can search for all users who go by that first name within a certain town or city.

Google

Google is the most famous search engine in the world and one of your most powerful online tools for finding a specific person. If you have only a phone number, for example, you can enter that phone number and see if it brings up a match with a certain person. Just entering a person's name could also return plenty of useful leads, including social media profiles and publicly available information.

People search engine

If popular platforms like Google and Facebook fail to turn up anything, you may want to use a search engine that is specifically designed for searching for people online. People search engines focus exclusively on databases and public records that can help you track down a certain individual. Therefore, you tend to get more relevant results using a people search engine than you would using a traditional search engine.

Public records

Sometimes you'll have to dig a little deeper to find the information you are looking for. Public records, such as court documents, birth registries, and arrest warrants, can be a great source for finding a particular person. Public records tend to be organized either by state or county, so if you know where the person you are looking for lives or works then using that jurisdiction's online public records may help.

Local obituaries

If the person you are looking for may be deceased, you can search through local obituaries. Obituaries don't always appear in search engine results since obituaries tend to be very local. You may need to find the website of a local newspaper where the person you are looking for resided and go through their obituaries to see if that gives you any useful information.

The Internet is an amazing tool for finding ancestors, old friends, long, lost relatives or just about anybody anywhere in the world. By using any of the five methods described above, you'll substantially increase your chances of finding whoever it is you're looking for.

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