Over the course of your life, people will come and go. Childhood friends, high school sweethearts, college roommates, and so on. However, while it’s perfectly normal, you don’t have to simply accept you’ll never see these people again. If you want to find out what your best friend in first grade is doing these days, you can. And if you want to try to reconnect with a cousin you haven’t heard from in years, you can do that, too.
All you have to do when you want to find people from your past is go online. Once there, you have a number of options for conducting a search:
Use a Web Search Engine
Whatever search engine you use for general online searches can also be used to find more information about people you’ve known. Simply enter a person’s name on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. to start your search.
If the person’s name is fairly common, you will probably need to include some more specific identifying information in your search criteria. Otherwise, you will likely need to sift through pages and pages of results before you find any for your specific person. So, along with the person’s name, include a city and state where they’ve lived, the name of the high school where he or she went, a place where they worked, or some other information that can narrow down your results more quickly.
Your results will likely take you to other sites to obtain further personal and/or contact information for the person, such as social media channels or news sites.
Try Looking on Social Media
Without exaggeration, just about every adult in America is on at least one of the popular social media platforms. So, you are highly likely to find the person you’re looking for (or, at least, someone who can help you find them) by searching for them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Simply search for them on a social media site the same way you would on a regular search engine. You will still probably have to sift through a list of users with the same name. But once you find the right person, you will likely have more immediate means to communicate with that person through the site’s direct messaging and video chat applications.
Conduct an Online People Search
A person’s contact information is part of the public record. As such, it is available to you as long as you know where to find it. A dedicated online people search is just that place.
Similar to a general web search, including more specific identifying information at the beginning will help to narrow down your results much quicker. Include a city and state where the person has lived, their age, and/or their middle name to find someone fast. Then, once you’ve found your person, you have the option to access a number of current and past addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. So, not only can you easily confirm that you’ve found the right person, you have a number of ways to try and reconnect with them.
The internet has made so many things easier, especially when it comes to getting information. And now, because of it, you don’t have to say goodbye forever to people from your past. By going online, you can actually find people and take steps to renew relationships that used to mean so much to you.