If yous want to track a person down, the web is awash with potential resource. You can find anyone online with the assistance of search engines, social networks, and public records among other tools.

Whether it's a lost friend, a rogue landlord, or an one-time teacher, you should exist able to locate them with a chip of digging. Hither are steps to finding data near someone online.

Google should always be your kickoff port of call. A simple search could reveal all sorts of information most a person, including their job, family unit, and the urban center they live in.

If the person in question has a common name, try using some of Google'south Boolean search operators to narrow your focus. It's too worth checking out Google News. It will reveal whatever recent notable achievements or infamous scandals.

2. Set Up a Google Alert

google alerts

If you can't find any data using Google, try setting upwardly some Google Alerts. If something about the person y'all are looking for appears on the web in the future, you'll receive a notification in your e-mail inbox.

To ready a Google Alert, head to google.com/alerts and enter the person's name in the search box. Click on Evidence Options to customize settings such as language, region, and notification frequency.

3. Check Other Search Engines

Google isn't the just bear witness in town. In that location are lots of search engines out there. They all have differing search algorithms, pregnant you'll be able to dig up alternative nuggets of information by using them.

4. Check Mainstream Social Networks

Estimates advise that the number of social media users worldwide stands at around iv.ii billion equally of Jan 2021. As a result, there'south a potent chance that the person you lot want to runway down is out there somewhere.

Y'all should scan all the usual haunts such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But brand sure yous don't overlook LinkedIn. Some professionals may maintain their LinkedIn profile as their only social media presence.

v. Cheque Public Records

"Public records" is a wide term. Which records are bachelor online is striking-and-miss. If you're in luck, yous might be able to observe a person'southward nascency document, matrimony license, divorce decree, and more.

You also be able to check documents such every bit land employ certificates and visitor registers to see if the person has whatever entries connected to their name.

Sites to look at include:

Zabasearch

zabasearch

Zabasearch is a skilful starting point, but information technology will return a massive corporeality of information. It pulls information from openly available records like courtroom records, voter registration information, and Yellow Pages etc. To manage the deluge of information, you tin narrow it downward to a state, for example.

Most of the information is available free of charge, and you should exhaust all your search options earlier taking the paid road.

VitalRec

VitalRec will help you find birth certificates, death records, marriage licenses, and divorce decrees for every country, county, and boondocks records office in the United states.

The site also has some international records. Countries covered include Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, the U.Chiliad., Finland, French republic, Germany, Republic of hungary, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Sweden.

The National Sexual practice Offender Public Website

The National Sex Offender Public Website—or NSOPW for curt—is the U.Due south. list of registered sex activity offenders.

It contains the databases for all 50 states likewise equally the District of Columbia, U.Due south. territories, and Indian Country.

Military Records

Veterans' Service Records are bachelor through the National Archives in the United States. Information technology includes photos, documents, and searchable databases are available.

Notation that the data is not exhaustive. The National Annal's curators admit the bulk of the data is not bachelor online. That's especially true for pre-Earth War I records.

United States Copyright Office copyright search

If the person you're trying to detect is a writer, musician, or otherwise involved in the creative arts, you might find a reference to them in the United States Copyright Office. The department's records are all searchable online.

You can search for both personal names and corporate names. Other countries maintain their own equivalent searchable databases.

Patent Records

Similarly, if the person you want to runway downwards is a scientist or inventor, y'all might find them in the United States Patent and Trademark Office's public records.

You can search by name, design marking, keywords, and more. Again, other countries have comparable databases.

Federal Bureau of Prisons

There's a run a risk that the person is incarcerated. After all, well-nigh 1 in every 100 American adults is behind bars.

If they're a bedevilled criminal, they might not bear witness up on social media or in some of the other sites nosotros've discussed. And then, y'all can bank check the nationwide list of detainees on the official Federal Agency of Prisons website.

vi. Cheque Niche Search Engines

Notwithstanding no luck? Don't worry; you lot're not out of options yet. Next upward, check out some deep search engines. They specialize in specific industries, regions, and social networks.

Some niche search engines that will aid you find someone online:

PeekYou

peekyou

PeekYou scans people's social media accounts along with references to a person's username on other sites and blogs. You demand a name and (optionally) a phone number to begin.

Pipl

Pipl is excellent at uncovering telephone numbers, addresses, and links to public records. You can refine your search by city, state, and cypher code to get a narrower selection of hits.

Find a Grave

If the person you're looking for is deceased, you could head to the Discover a Grave website. Information technology is the world's most extensive database of information about graves and tombstones. It is a collection of user-submitted photos and content.

At the fourth dimension of writing, in that location are 170 one thousand thousand memorials you can search through. In that location is a mix of ordinary deceased people and departed famous people.

Interment.net

In the same vein, Interment.net has millions of official cemetery records from thousands of cemeteries around the earth.

Information is available for the United States, Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Poland.

Lastly, it's worth poking around on a few niche social networks. You'd be surprised at the variety in the number of smaller sites out in that location. There are networks specifically created for investors, beer lovers, neighborhood communities, and more.

Information technology'due south Easy to Find People Online

The diverse array of tools nosotros have covered should assist you lot get upward and running in your bid to observe data most someone online.

Every bit long as you work through all the sources in a logical manner (and spread your cyberspace broad plenty), you're near sure to be able to discover the person you are looking for eventually.

13 Websites to Notice People on the Internet

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About The Author

Dan Cost (1605 Articles Published)

Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Manager since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and whatever other forms of partnership. Y'all can also find him roaming the show flooring at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hi if you're going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.

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