Find People Online for Free

For the amateur seeker with intermediate level research skills, there are some excellent free resources available on the web that can help you find just about anyone anywhere. The more information you have to start out with, the better your chances of finding who you're looking for in the least amount of time. There are some key pieces of information that are required for this.

The most crucial information consists of you guessed it a first and last name. Additional names middle names, maiden names, or married names are also extremely helpful. You should know the city and state where the subject resides or last resided. Anything further, like the names of close relatives - grandparents, parents, children, etc. (these can sometimes be turned up through one of the resources below) - old phone numbers, places of past or present employment are all very useful. Usenet postings or Google search results containing tidbits of unspecific but positively identifying information can be extemely helpful in extrapolating where to look next in your search. And don't neglect the potential usefulness of the ever growing profile-yourself-online movement at MySpace. You might not find your subject there, but you might find your subject's teenager or other close relative, providing you with further clues.

Tiny clues can make or break your efforts. For example, I was unable to easily locate an address for someone I was looking for. She had probably made an effort to cover (or at least not broadcast) her tracks. But I knew what town she lived in and what her remarried name was. I knew her husband's name. A Google search on her remarried name returned a link to a post to an Evangelical Christian discussion forum where she mentioned having just moved into her first home. I was then able to turn up a PDF document in a county database containing a scanned image of the deed to her condo, which revealed her residential address.

Not every situation requires that kind of digging. Two websites I have found indispensable in locating long lost contacts are SearchBug (http://www.searchbug.com/) and ZabaSearch (http://www.zabasearch.com/). SearchBug is good for locating instances of public records. It supports searching based on name, address, and phone number (it will even tell you if a phone number is a land line or a cellular line and who the service provider is), and can often provide any of these based on any of the others. ZabaSearch is primarily a nationwide white pages database that provides additional tidbits of information (birth month and year, if recorded in public record) and contains links to databases similar in scope to SearchBug. The two used in conjunction can often reveal a lot of what you may be looking for.

(Some) Types of Public Records

There are a number of distinctly different types of public records, each with their own inherent value depending on what kind of information you are looking for. Following is a basic guide to some types of documents and the kind of information they contain. The following are generally available at the county level:

Grantor/Grantee Indices and Records - These will be helpful to you primarily if you know the subject owns a home. Grantor and grantee refer to the two main parties involved in the transfer of a title or deed of trust, typically for a home and/or parcel of land. Therefore, these records are generated when a home or other real property is bought/sold.

Reconveyance Records - As with Grantor/Grantee records, these will only apply if the subject owns a home or a parcel of land. These records are generated when someone takes out a second mortgage on their home or land. They aren't generally very exciting, but they tell you who holds the ultimate rights (the subject's mortgage lender) to the subject's home or other real property. They may contain document identification numbers (most online public inquiry systems permit a search by document identification number) and links to associated documents including area maps, satellite images, blueprints, and photographs. Reconveyance records may also clue you in to spots of financial trouble for your subject, in which case you might want to look for...

Court Dockets - If you're subject has ever been involved in any type of court proceeding, you can generally - but not always - find records pertaining to the case online. The types of court records we're concerned with are generally found at the county and state level. These records are generally brief in terms of raw data, but once you learn how to interpret them, they can tell you a lot about the person in question. These records contain anything from speeding tickets to divorce to burglary to...probably murder. Court records can also be found at the state level.

Uniform Commecial Code (UCC) Records - Does your subject own a business? You can find out a lot about both subject and business entity through UCC filings. I once had issues with an online retailer outside my state of residence. They had extracted funds from my bank account for an order I had canceled months prior. I wasn't happy with this and phone calls and e-mails were not being returned promptly. I got curious and went looking for information concerning the general reputation of the business. I found that the owner had a decade long history of failed business ventures in the same industry. Aside from exercising my research skills, I learned valuable lesson in all of this: know who you're doing businesses with ahead of time.

Better Business Bureau records - (http://search.bbb.org) - Even if your subject is the owner of a business who isn't a member, you might still find records with the BBB in the subject's area. These can indicate complaints filed against a company and usually contain statistics regarding how quickly and how well past complaints have been addressed.

How and Where to Find (Some) Public Records

Once you have positively identified your subject's full legal name, city, and state of residence (or prior residence), you can begin your Google search for identifying what county the subject resides in. Once you have identified what county the subject resides in, you can search for public records databases in their county of residence. The most successful search terms for locating these sites are:

County Clerk

County Recorder

County Clerk-Recorder

Recorded Documents

For example, if you're looking for Joe Smith, who owns a home in Thousand Oaks, California, you would find that Thousand Oaks is in Ventura County. You could then Google "Ventura County Recorder" and be pointed to Ventura County recorder's office home page (http://recorder.countyofventura.org/recorder.htm) On this page, you'll look carefully and find a link to the county's Grantor/Grantee Index, where you can search for Joe by name.

Additional records can sometimes be found at the state (or federal which won't be covered here) level. The National Center for State Courts offers a list ( http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/info_court_web_sites .html#State) of links to state courts organized by state. The list also includes local and municipal courts (where available), and there are separate lists for federal, tribal and international courts. Be aware that some sites may require a nominal fee for records searches and retrieval.

Conclusions

Though it is commonly asserted that we live in a 'dossier society', these resources are not a silver bullet. Some people, by conscious effort or lifestyle choice, are not possible to locate using online resources. Bear in mind, however, that your search will typically be as rewarding as you are willing to make it. Sometimes it takes time and persistence to turn up the information you are looking for.

There are many offline options available to you, if you're willing to do the leg work. In fact, some types of public records can only be obtained offline. Records such as official birth, death and marriage certificates (in some states) can only be obtained by application (generally requiring a fee) or by making an actual trip to a local county archive.

Your local library is a good starting point for additional information on doing your own research. There are some particularly handy publications you can likely check out for free. If your local library doesn't have them, ask if they have an interlibrary loan program. Interlibrary loan opens up your pool of possibility to libraries at universities, community colleges, and public libraries in other states.

The two most useful titles I have found through my local library on the subject of public records are The Investigator's Little Black Book 3 by Robert Scott and Find Anyone Fast by Richard S. Johnson and Debra Johnson Knox. For additional titles, search your library's catalog or isbn.nu (http://www.isbn.nu/) for "public records".