How to Find Someone, or Find Out About Someone

Early in 2002 MSNBC launched a study and found that one third of people involved in online dating are married! That’s right, 30% are married and cheating.

Wondering if your current flame is at least telling some preliminary truths? Is he or she cheating on you? Wondering how you can find your old high school boyfriend or girlfriend? How about whether he or she is married? There’s tons of information on the web, and if you you’ve got some sleuthing skills, you’ll be amazed what you can come up with free of charge.

Freebies from professional people-search sites
Professional people-search sites offer some basic information for free. They enable you to search by first and last name, and most include optional filters for city and state. Some sites let you narrow results down by age, as well.

Let’s say you enter your new sweetheart’s name, and last known city and state. The results that come back may be surprising. Often companies, such as Intelius , Abika, or MelissaData.com will list among the results, all previous cities and states of residence on record. These records can go back as far as 20-30 years or more, and you may have to guess which is the most recent one. They can also list possible relatives – these are usually people who have shared a residence with your sweetie at some point in time. They would include parents, brothers and sisters, and ex-spouses, among others. Sometimes, even in-laws may show up. Underage children will not be displayed.

Don’t discount the value of perhaps searching on one of those unfamiliar names that shows up as a potential relative! Do a search on them, and see if they have lived with your honey in other places too. Be suspicious of opposite-gendered roommates around the same age.

Does he say that he lives in an affluent, gated community? Zipskinny gives you informaiton, such as average household income, average number of unemployed, occupations, and racial diversity, all according to zip code.

What you need to pay for at people-search sites
For a fee, these same sites will do more in depth research and provide you with information such as the person’s current age, complete address and phone number, property ownership (did he say he owned his house? Or, is he renting?), aliases or maiden names, the current occupants of the most recent address on file, neighbors, and criminal records.

Is he married? The following states list marriage and divorce records as public record and would be available in an easy search: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, and Utah. Professional search firms can still get you the information you desire, but if you don’t know the state in which your honey might have been married or divorced in, it could get expensive. Each state has its own regulations and would have to be searched individually by an actual employee of the search firm. To get around this, some sites offer a “Current and Ex-Spouse Search”, which details where the current and ex-spouses live. Potentially, this information would give you a starting point at which to base your search. (Also, logically, if there are no ex-spouses, then maybe he has been single all his life!)

For a fee, there’s a wealth of information out there, including license plate searches (not all states), driving history, police reports, criminal records, sex offender status, civil court records, just to name a few. Additionally, some companies extend their services far beyond the United States! Try Abika for a vast and comprehensive array of services.

How can you find out information for free, on your own?
Name searches
Straight out search using the person’s name, in quotation marks. Sites like monstercrawler and dogpile will enable you to search using several engines at once. If you get too many results, then add the person’s state, or some other identifying information. Google and Yahoo will sometimes give you complete name, address and phone number, just by searching on the person’s name and state.

Hint: From your results, use the “cached” link, so when you open the page, all the words you searched on will be highlighted within the page. (This will not work on PDF documents.)

**Note, if you “Google” yourself and find your name, address and phone number, you can eliminate it. Click on the “Phonebook results for…” link. When the screen refreshes, click “Request to have your name removed from this list.” You will need to complete a brief removal request form, but Google is pretty quick in responding to your request.

**If you find yourself on Yahoo, click Help and click “Remove My Listing” on the left hand menu. You will need to complete a brief removal request form. Yahoo promises to remove the listing within 24 hours.

Another interesting search would be their name and (potential) spouse name.

Also, just for grins, search on their name in the Images. (An Images link can be found on both the Google and Yahoo web browsers.) It’s just a simple touch of the keypad. You never know what will turn up.

Phone number searches
Search on an email address or phone number; in either the Google or Yahoo search engines. If the number is listed, and sometimes even if it’s unlisted, it will return the phone customer’s name and address. Again, if you find yourself in this search, and wish to have your listing removed, you may do so by following the instructions in the Name Search notes above.

Email address searches
Generally, an email address won’t bring in any results in a search, but if you search on part of an email address, sometimes the part before the @ symbol will get you something. Some times it’s is a ‘user name’ for another site, such as myspace, or facebook. Once you get in there, who knows what you’ll find on their page!

Dating sites
Check personals and singles sites, such as Plenty of Fish, American Singles, and Yahoo Personals. Many enable you to search by age, location, and email address (if applicable) for free. You probably won’t be able to contact the person for free, but finding them there is probably enough.

Try suspected nicknames. Select the ‘profiles with pictures’ filter, if you’re short on time. You’d recognise his/her face immediately, right? Without the picture, it’s a little more difficult. You will have to actually read all the profiles that result from your search.

A rather calculating idea is to search within a dating site by location and age, and just look at all the pictures.

Your dating safety
With all this information available, I would advise anyone involved in online dating to at least do a preliminary search on his or her date. Make sure name, age and place of residence line up.

If you are going to meet someone out of town, I’d definitely pay for a preliminary background check. Get the most recent address and phone number listed. Look to see whom else may be living at the residence. The most basic report can cost you as little as $7.95. Criminal searches can be run for $19.95. I think you’d agree that your safety is worth it.