Are you interested in knowing how you can search for your old friends online? Now, don’t you just love the idea of re-hooking up with your long-lost pals 5, 10, 15, or 20 years down the line? No doubt friendship is as priceless as a jewel. It helps us have a shared base of experiences, some of them memorable and others not so pleasant you might not want to remember.
Our friends hold the key to some of the best memories and worst times in our history. And locating childhood ‘besties’, old schoolmates, comrades in the armed forces, former office colleagues, and more could just be all you need to add more sparks to your life. So, hitch a ride with me as we explore the best working methods for finding old friends you’re missing.
Get back in touch with old/lost friends
1. Sophisticated people search tools
This should be your first option and search tool to search and reconnect with old friends faster. Unlike the other tools, this people search system is the most sophisticated, the best, and the fastest. So, in a matter of minutes, you’ll be able to search for long-lost friends from high school, work, or even a trip.
To search for an old friend with only a first name, visit the site and then, add the exact first name you want. Then, click the search button, and wait a minute or two. It can take longer to filter the results. However, it’s an accurate site that lets you locate lost friends from high school, college, etc…
The website offers search using the following entries:
- Person’s first name and last name
- The friend’s home address (even the old one)
- Maiden name, surname, nickname
- Phone number
- His email address
So, if you have any of these search options, you’ll get back in touch with long-lost friends faster than any other way.
2. People Finders
Just like others, you can do a search on this website that links to public records, names, states, and other information you have about your pal. Again, with this tool, you can do an advanced search if your initial attempt did not yield anything fruitful.
The program can give suggestions or details about close relatives and associates of the person you seek. With this, you should be able to make contact with such associates to find out more where necessary. And by the way, it’s a good way to find old classmates by their name or address.
3. Social network sites
One of the first places to come to mind these days when searching for anyone would likely be the social media network. Of course, that should be expected. Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, Snapchat, Instagram, etc, and other networks such as LinkedIn can make all the difference when trying to locate even an old buddy of over twenty years ago online.
With a lot of people being online for so many reasons, it becomes a lot easier to locate an old friend you lost contact with years ago. In fact, finding your old friends on Facebook can be easy if you start the search by their name and city, then, use other options such as their known nicknames, surnames, etc…
For instance, Facebook has close to 2 billion subscribers, with hundreds of millions active on a monthly basis. On the other hand, LinkedIn has over 300 million active users, with such figures on each network, the chance of your old buddy being on any of the networks is very high.
Another approach to take could be to join groups such as alumni groups and groups that share some relationship with your old friend; probably, he could be in one of them. You could also do a search on other close friends you both shared from the past to see if he or she would pop up as a recommended name for mutual friends.
4. Search engines
Using search engines might not always turn out to be something exciting or useful. But it could be worth the try. If your old pal has a reasonable online presence, the chance is that his name would turn up with a search result.
Most popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duckduckgo, or Yippy have an extremely large database of all that happens online. They also link out to billions of hosting companies, websites, and more to help make your search more possible when done properly. Sometimes, you might end up with a better search result compared to Facebook.
- Keep reading: How to find out what social media sites someone is on
Other options for finding missing old friends
Pipl.com
Pipl.com is another source to check for anyone online, including close friends you haven’t seen for a long time. It can even access social media details using the person’s email, phone number, and full name. It checks through public records and other sources to find your friends with a database of millions of persons.
BuddyFinder.com
BuddyFinder.com contains a record of over 20 million people, it helps you locate old friends and even check for military records. With this site, you can use the name or the email address to locate your long-lost buddy.
Alumni.net
Alumni houses over 5 million registered members from over one hundred thousand organizations worldwide. With over 16 years of keeping records of teams, organizations, and more, it could be the solution to finding a close friend you haven’t seen in years. In 3 easy steps; register, join a school, college, or office group, you can find your missed person. It can narrow down a search using some parameters you include and then pick from alphabetical order.
Classmates.com
Classmate works best for US and Canadian contacts or people you share a relationship with from either country. It has over 40 million members and can help you faster locate alumni or military colleagues. See events, reunion pages, and message boards. It’s another old way to find old classmates and friends you missed for a long time. However, don’t expect it to work all the time.
FriendsReunited.com
Friends Reunited allows you to access a database of over 19 million likely friends you once shared something in common. So, once you have your buddy’s name or other information such as the street address, institution attended, etc, then you should be able to do a search for him or her.
You can even chat with other users who can help locate a friend using the available features on the site. The benefit is that it can bypass fake names to locate your long-lost friend with his real name or even with the maiden name for ladies who have changed their names.
Public records
Have you thought about going through public records? People Finders brings you most of the available public information. And it can spring up even more than what you expect sometimes. Your old pals may choose to remain anonymous hence you might not have had any contact for long, but public records could help bring them out of finding.
I’m sorry, but unfortunately, an old buddy might be dead or in jail serving a long sentence, and public records could just spoil your mood when you get to find the truth.
Modern people search tools can help you put most public records in a single place. They can provide you with criminal records, birth location, residence, birthday, phone number, relatives, etc. For public records, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website contains details for those who have any political links, just like other public records, but it might not be so easy to access.
- Read next: How to find someone you lost contact with
Carrying out a search on an old buddy might not be as difficult as it seems initially. Even when the person decides to stay off the internet, as long as you have some basic information about them, you can dig them out! Once you can locate their email or former institutions attended, you might be able to locate someone else who knows how to reach them.
The secret for finding the best friends we lost contact with even for decades is to keep trying and not to stick to one method only till you get what you seek; so much for old time’s sake. Happy searching! What do you think about all these tools and tips for finding long-lost friends? Want to add something, or have you tried any of these search options? So, share your feedback using the comment form below.
