Do you still think about that cute guy that sat next to you in your college statistics class that gave you all of the answers? Are the people in your high school yearbook just a photo and a name to you now?
You may think that some chapters in your life have been forcefully closed, however, there are ways to track almost anyone down.
If you have a long-lost old friend with whom you have shared some great memories but fell out of touch or a crush from years ago that you can’t get out of your head, there are ways to get in touch with them. In this article, we will be looking at how you can track down a long-lost friend and how you can get back in touch with them.
Finding people in the digital age has gotten a lot easier thanks to the power of the internet. Keeping that in mind, the best way to track someone down is to start with a simple internet search. Let’s look into this further.
To start, try running a Google search on your long-lost friend. We tried this search method as well and we got tons of results. However, most of them were irrelevant.
Our next step was to reach out the school we attended, but that was a dead end as well. We also tried to call a few numbers found on Facebook, but most of them were either disconnected or reallocated to someone else. So we were back to square one.
With complete resolute and determination, we powered on and tried a few more alternative methods. Here is what we found worked best for us.
The first step is to find any and all kinds of information you can. This can include looking in old yearbooks, any emails you may have exchanged, a letter with a return address, anything which may be able to help you.
Write all of this information down so you can keep track of it as you are searching for your long-lost friend.
If your friend had a spark in them back in the school days, it is highly possible they may have made it big and got some attention in the media. Or perhaps they were recognized in a smaller way such as a local newspaper.
Regardless of why they are on the internet, running a quick Google search with their name is easy and the worst thing that can happen is that you don’t find anything on that person.
Extra Tip: If nothing comes up try adding any middle names or initials you may remember. If the results are still unimpressive, then try adding the hometown or the town where they live in the result which should find you something.
If they had a common name or surname, try adding an activity you recall them being involved in like soccer or volunteer work.
In the digital day and age, everyone is connected. Going on popular social media channels such as Facebook is another great way to try to locate your long-lost friend.
To start, try searching the friend list of any of your social media friends who would also happen to know the person you seek. If that takes you nowhere try running a general search on Facebook for the person and add in any information like where they live or would have lived in the past. This will help narrow down the results.
You can also search on Twitter or Instagram but chances of finding someone there are generally lower. Don’t forget to take a look at LinkedIn as most business professionals are active on LinkedIn.
If nothing works, try telling your story through a social media post and ask people to share it. This shall help find you the person you seek, with the power of the internet I believe you will definitely find them.
National Cellular Directory contains a large database of billions of records which you can search for free during their Happy Hour. Simply perform a Search By Name lookup to find relevant results. All you need to have is their first and last name as well as city and state. If you don’t remember their last name, enter the first initial of their last name if you can remember that. If you don’t remember what city they live in, you can try to perform a search by only selecting the state.
If you have a contact number you can also look it up using the Reverse Cell Phone Lookup feature offered by National Cellular Directory.
National Cellular Directory can offer you reports which contain the full name, any contact numbers which may be available, current address as well as past addresses, any family members which may be connected to them and plenty more. All the searches are completely confidential, and the people you search for will not be notified in any way.
Bonus Tip: If you want to do any deeper digging on a person, National Cellular Directory also offers Background Check reports.
Now it’s time to be extra persistent if you still haven’t found the person you are looking for. If you find any addresses or contact details for the siblings or other closely related people of the person you are searching for, then go offline and reach out to them via whatever avenue of contact is available based on the information that you found.
If you get any kind of information like the names of their children, write it down and search for them as they may be active on social platforms and may be able to help you get in touch with their parents.
Google Images offers you the ability to do a reverse image search with the help by simply uploading an image. Upload an image and run it through Google to see if you find any kind of result for them.
This method may or may not work for you depending on how old the image you are trying to search for is.
I pray that the person whom you seek is alive and well but we can’t be certain of that. If you have exhausted all of your options and wonder if your friend is still on this Earth, run an online search for any obituaries. Websites like Legacy and Tributes offer you the ability to look up obituaries from local news sources by putting in a name and any location data you may have available.
We hope you find the person you were looking for by following these steps above. If you have any more questions about the process, then don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we shall definitely try to help you. If you were wondering if we have found people by following this guide, then rest assured because I have personally found a few old friends using the steps outlined above.
If you are interested in even more lifestyle-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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