How to Find Where Someone Lives With Only a Name and Old Job

Finding people on the Internet can be a difficult process, especially if you have limited information about them. If you have a person's first name, last name and city, you have a better chance of finding them. However, you can still conduct online searches for people if you only have their first name and a city. You can find people on a search engine or a social networking portal.

It can be difficult to find someone online without knowing their full name, but it's not impossible. If you know other aspects about a person's life, such as where they live or work, you can sometimes find them on search engines using a combination of first name and that information. Social media can also be helpful, especially if you have connections in common on various social tools.

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Find Someone Without the Last Name

One of the easiest ways to search for a person by the first name is using a search engine. If a person's first name is at all common, it won't be sufficient to locate the person, unless they're uniquely famous by just that name like singers Prince and Madonna. If you know other information about the person, however, such as where they live or work, you can combine those facts to search for them with search engines like Google or Bing.

For example, if you wanted to find someone named Susan who works at the First National Bank of Anytown, you might be able to type "Susan first national bank of anytown" into a search engine and see results from an employee listing or a career site. Similarly, if you know someone's hometown, educational history or hobbies, you can often craft a search string that turns up the person you seek.

Facebook Search By Name

Facebook and other social networks enable you to search for people by first name and other identifiers. If you know or suspect you have friends in common with someone but only know their first name, you can try typing it into Facebook and see if that person pops up. You can also narrow the search with various filtering options such as where the person went to school, lives or works.

Other social networking sites, including the career-oriented platform LinkedIn, offer similar search tools. Many also allow you to upload cellphone or email contacts to search on the sites, which can be useful if you have a person's phone number or email address.

The More Info, the Better

If you have more information about someone than just a first name, such as a phone number, address or last name, the task becomes dramatically simpler.

You can use people search tools like Whitepages or ZabaSearch to locate people with a given full name in a particular geographical area or do a reverse phone lookup for a particular phone number. You can also include the person's full name in a Google or Bing search or social media search to try to find the right person.

If you find information using one search tool, you can use it to refine your searches on other tools, like adding hometown or last name gleaned from Google to a Facebook search.

Step 1

Enter the person's name, city and state in a search engine such a Google, Yahoo or Bing. If possible, enter other information that you know about the person, such as the school they attended or an employer. Although there will be a seemingly endless number of results, the more information you enter, the better chance you have of finding an appropriate result.

Step 2

Create an account on a social network, such as Facebook or MySpace (see Resources). Log into the account with your username and password. Search for the person in the search box in the network. For example, enter the person's name and city in the search box on MySpace. Select "People" and click "Search." On Facebook, enter the person's name and city in the search box at the top of the page and press "Enter." Regardless of the social network you use, you might have to search through several pages until you find the right match.

In the Information Age, everybody leaves a digital trail. And if the person doesn't have one, well, let's look harder. With Google, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and countless other social media sites, whoever you're looking for is bound to have some of their personal information online. Although sometimes creepy, it's easy to follow this trail back to the person you've been looking for.

Finding Someone Online

Write down all the vital information you know about this person

Trying to find somebody using their name alone will probably cast too wide a net. Make your hunt more targeted by including information such as:

• Full name and nickname
• Age and date of birth
• Schools attended
• Hobbies, likes and dislikes, team sports (especially at schools)
• Places of work
• Old addresses and phone numbers
• Friends, family members, and neighbours

Search for variations on the person's name and/or nickname

Every time you find a page or clue that suggests other parts of the profile, write it down in the profile. For example, you might find "Bea Harrington" mentioned in a newspaper in Albany, NY and a "Beatrice R. Harrington" in a brochure in Dallas, TX. Write down both of those locations in the profile with question marks. If you find another indication that the person with that name is in one of those locations, put a tick next to that location every time.

• To pull up exact matches only, put quotation marks around each version of their name. (If you're unsure as to spelling, don't use quotation marks.) Plug it into major search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.); the more variations and engines you try, the more info you're likely to find.
• If you suspect that the person has gone to another country, especially one where a different language is spoken, try a foreign search engine. Many major search engines have different versions for different countries (Australia, China, etc.). Try those.
• When searching for a woman who might have gotten married and changed her name, try adding "né" in the search box with every variation (née is a word used to indicate that the person is using their maiden name).

Vary your online searches by including other details about the person

After you've done a full sweep on the person's name and nickname, do a second with a slight modification such as their hometown, age, high school, former workplace, etc. Repeat as necessary.

• If you know of a particular website this person may be associated with, you can search within site on Google with something like "site: stanford.edu Beatrice Harrington" to focus on those results.

Use a search engine designed specifically to find people

These allow anyone to perform people searches. Try ZabaSearch.com or Pipl.com, for example. Use filters to narrow your results when applicable.

• Lost Trekkers is another place to find lost people. Choose the country, mode of transport or other option, and leave the details in the relevant forum. You will need to register to place an ad. You can search through existing posts to see who might be looking for you or the same person you're looking for.

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Search for the person's last known cell phone number

Since cells are mobile and their numbers can be transferred to new phones or providers, people's cell numbers are much less likely to change their home numbers. Though reverse-tracking a cell phone number usually costs money, you might get lucky by simply searching for the number on various search engines. If the person has listed or advertised their phone number anywhere on the Internet, it's likely to turn up. Put the entire phone number in quotes and experiment with hyphens, periods, and parentheses to separate the numbers.

• In the US, a phone's three-digit area code can be traced back to the location where a cell phone was issued, which might help you pinpoint another area where the person has lived or worked. The next three digits of the number are the exchange area; most exchange areas cover a small town, or a section inside a city, say a 10 x 10 block area. You can contact the phone companies in that area, or get a phone book from the area, and make a map of the exchange area, based on exchanges in the book. If you have a phone number and ZIP code, you can cross over the maps and get an even smaller area to search.

Search the online white pages

Type in the person's name and any other details you find relevant. However, if you don't specify a location, you'll get results from all across the country, which is useful if the person has moved.

• Sometimes, searching by last name only will pull up a family member that you recognize. If the white pages show a list of associated people, you might find the person's name listed there. This can be useful in cases where the person you're looking for has changed their last name after marrying, for example.
• Search the person's ZIP code if known. If you have a 9-digit ZIP code, it can be tracked to the exact block within a city or town. Now you can search in directories in that area for this person. If they are not in that directory, call directory assistance for that area. Many times people will have an unlisted number, which, while not in the book, is often in directory assistance.

Search social networking sites

Some people specify that they don't want their public profiles to appear in search engine results, in which case you'll need to go straight to the source. Try searching for things like Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google profiles. If given the option, be sure to narrow down the results by specifying a hometown or school, etc. To search all the major social networking sites simultaneously, use a search engine like Wink.com.

Consider more non-traditional searches.

Sometimes Facebook and Google don't exactly give you the information you're looking for. If there are special scenarios this person may have run into, you can focus on them instead of the general information every website will warrant.

• Most states have court search websites where all you have to do is (after acknowledging the terms and agreements, of course) enter a person's name and all their run-ins show up in a nice list. If nothing else, it's juicy and may give you their location (if they're in-state).
• If it's been a while since you've seen hide or hair of this person, consider searching the SSDI — the Social Security Death Index.
• While there's no national website, most states have records of their inmates. A quick Internet query will turn up what your state's site is (make sure it's .gov).
• The National Personnel Records Center is a pretty comprehensive list of military records.

Post an ad

If you know where the person is located, post an ad in the local online bulletin board (e.g. Craigslist). Explain who you're looking for and why. Leave a form of contact information that you don't mind having spammed (ex. an email address you set up specifically for this purpose).

• If you want a long-term ad, build a simple website that uses their name as a keyword. If they ever search their own name, your site might turn up.
• If you don't know the person's location, but you do know which schools they went to, what their career is, or what hobbies/interests they pursue, try posting on forums and email lists ("listservs"). Keep the person's privacy in mind; don't reveal any incriminating information that you know about them.

Carefully consider posting in a friend-finder forum

Friend-finder forums are available and are moderated by "search angels" or volunteers who use special people search tools. However, it's unlikely that the person you're searching for will appreciate having their relevant details distributed to strangers online – especially the kind of person who has managed not to leave a paper trail thus far.

Make some phone calls

Though it might be a bit awkward, the best way to get to the person is through their network. Whatever you know of the last, get the people in those circles on the phone. Whether it's a boss, an old girlfriend, or a neighbour, make the call. It sure beats driving all over the place.

• Be sure to be friendly and to appear sane. The world is so full of negative media nowadays that a stranger inquiring to us about a friend of ours comes off as really shady. You might get a few nasty responses, but you also may strike gold.

When you're trying to find someone online, Google's not the only game in town. In the last two years, a handful of new people search engines have come onto the scene that offers better ways to pinpoint people info by name, handle, location, or place of employment. While there's still no killer, one-stop people search, there are more ways than ever to track down a long-lost friend, stalk an ex, or screen a potential date or employee. The next time you wonder, "Whatever happened to so-and-so?" you've got a few power people to search for tools to turn to.

Find Phone Numbers and Addresses with ZabaSearch

Lookup anyone's home address(es) and phone numbers at ZabaSearch, a creepily-comprehensive people search engine that will freak you out when you search on your own name but save your ass when you desperately need a former coworker's phone number. ZabaSearch's index includes listed and unlisted numbers and addresses (though the founders say all the info is public record.)

Search the "Deep Web" with Pipl

My favourite new search engine of the bunch, Pipl digs up information about a person Google often misses, supposedly by searching the "deep web" (or "invisible web.") Pipl returns an impressive number of results for most people who use their "real" names online, including personal web pages, press mentions, MySpace pages, and Amazon wishlists. You can also narrow your search for common names by entering the city, state and country, too.

Search Several Social Sites at Once with Wink

So the person you're looking for likely has a Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, or Xanga account? Instead of searching each service individually, enter their full name or screen name, plus other identifying information like interests and location at Wink to do a one-hit comprehensive search of all those services at once.

Get Employment Results at ZoomInfo

Job-centric search engine ZoomInfo aggregates people and company information in one place to help candidates find the right job. Still, its people search tool also turns up information about corporate types especially well. ZoomInfo's information listings on people, culled from the web, include people's employment history and current job title, whether or not they're looking for a job. Search by a person's full name at ZoomInfo, and when you get too many results, filter them by geography (US and Canada only.)

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Find More than College Students at Facebook

Incessant notifications, Beacon, and zombies aside, one of Facebook's greatest utilities is finding people online, and it's not just for students anymore. Chances are your grandmother set up a Facebook account this year, so all those annoying emails might be worth tracking down your best friend when you were nine years old who moved to Florida on Facebook.

Finally, if you run across folks online you want to know more about often, search a ton of engines for someone's name with the Who Is This Person? Firefox extension. Simply highlight the name on any web page and look 'em up on Wink, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook, Google News, Technorati, Yahoo Person Search, Spock, WikiYou, ZoomInfo, IMDB, MySpace and other engines from the Who Is This Person?

How to Find Where Someone Lives With Only a Name and Old Job

Source: https://private-investigators.net.au/how-can-i-find-someone-with-just-a-name/

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