Find Anyone for Free on the Internet

In the old days, it was next to impossible to find a long lost relative. There was no such thing as a simple search. You started at the library, spending hours looking through birth records and newspaper articles, trying to find someone that might know something. If you couldn't find that person in your town, you had to start over in another town. The next question would be, "What town would they be in?" Often times, it would have been necessary to enlist the help of a private investigator, but that didn't guarantee that you would find your person. Countless time and money could be spent on a search that often turned up nothing.

Times have changed, and with that change came better technology and subsequently, better search techniques. These days, hiring a PI seems more like a romantic notion from a bad 40s B-movie. They no longer wear only fedoras and black trench coats. They've given them up for the wife beaters and favorite boxer shorts that the comfort of working at home allows them. While it is sometimes necessary to hire a PI to find someone who doesn't want to be found, most of the time the work can be done by you. The internet has, in most cases, replaced any real leg work, allowing you to find almost anyone with just a few key strokes.

My mother left when I was a teenager, and as an adult, I wanted to try to reconnect with her. I couldn't afford a PI, so I turned to the internet. The online white pages are a great place to start; however, if (as in my case) the person you are searching for has changed their last name, they can be useless. I next tried free people searches, but they only sent me vague information and asked for money before revealing any contact information. In ignorance, I did pay a fee, and after I did, they came back and told me that they had found nothing. I had wasted fifty dollars, but I did learn that most of those places are frauds.

The freedom of information act mandates that information should be available on every person. Because of this, most states have started posting their records on the internet free of charge. Once I learned this, I was able to find my mother's address, copies of the deed to her house, all of her previous addresses and even her husband's employer, and it took me less than five minutes of searching state records.