It’s Getting Harder to Find a People Finder

Category: Reference

A good man is hard to find, or so the saying goes. I first offered tips for “Finding People Online” way back in 2006, and updated that article with “Free People Search Tools” in 2013. Now in 2021, I have to say it’s getting harder to find free information about people and places. If you’re looking for a name, address or phone number, I have some tips on websites you should avoid, and some that actually do what they say, for free. Here's the scoop…

Toll Booths on the Information Highway

The phrase "information wants to be free" dates back to a hackers conference in the 1980s. The idea was that people should be able to access online information freely, without roadblocks or toll booths. Information might want to be free, but more and more, the people who gather, compile and present that information want to get paid. Almost every resource I included in those previous articles is now out of business or it costs money to get useful information.

But there are still some lookup services that are both truly free and useful. One example is voter registration records. In case you didn’t know, the information you supply when you register to vote is public information, and about half of U.S. states make that information available to interested parties. Some private individuals obtain voter records at least annually and make them available online free of charge. Colorado’s voter rolls, for example, are updated several times per year, making ColoradoVoters.info more reliable than most commercial databases. The data includes name, sex, address, county, political party affiliation, birth year, and active/inactive voter status.

The site is not particularly user-friendly, and sometimes it seems the importation of records is flawed; what is labeled a “phone” is formatted as a date, while the “precinct” field obviously contains a phone number. But overall, it provides accurate and current records for registered, active voters. Other States whose voter rolls are available, apparently from the same people who publish Colorado’s data, include Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. If your state isn't included, search online for "Registered voters in {your state}" and you'll probably find a source.

People search tools online

The information returned for each individual includes name, year of birth, the address used to register, political party affiliation, and the date registered. You will almost certainly find some deceased persons listed in these voter records. That’s bad for vote integrity, but possibly helpful for genealogy searchers.

If you're looking for information on a relative, or you're interested in genealogy, see my article Here's How: Genealogy Research Online. I've also found that online obituaries, typically printed in local newspaper websites, can reveal information about people, their location, and their relatives. I’ve used some of these resources to trace my roots as far back as 1640, when an ancestor of my father came from Holland to a Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island. Does that qualify me as a “Native New Yorker”?

For years, my favorite site for looking up names, addresses and phone numbers was WhitePages. The site lets you search by name & city, and can do reverse searches to see who is associated with an address or phone number. Some lookups are still free, but more often than not, I get partial information, with a link to "View Full Report." To get past that roadblock, you have to pay $10, or sign up for a subscription that costs $5/month (for mobile & landline numbers, addresses, and reverse phone lookups), or $20/month (for mobile & landline numbers, addresses, criminal history, and public records).

Other people-finder sites operate similarly, providing teasers, incomplete hits on search criteria intended to get your hopes up that yes, it could be your long-lost brother, and then hit you up for money. Before you run off to 411.com or Switchboard.com, those are also owned by WhitePages, and work the same way. Read the offers very carefully; nearly all contain “gotchas” that commit you to subscribing to an ongoing monthly charge on your credit/debit card. They all promise you can “cancel at any time” and even offer “100% satisfaction” guarantees. But I have not tested those assurances.

One people search site that DOES provide free lookups by name, phone or address is FastPeopleSearch. This site's public records data is updated regularly, and in addition to names, it includes landline, mobile, business and residential phone numbers, as well as information for addresses (past and present). In some cases, you can also find relatives and neighbors for people all across the USA. Enter a name (and optionally the city and state) and you'll get a list of possible hits with address and phone numbers. You also can enter a phone number or address to find the person associated with it. FastPeopleSearch does offer paid Background Reports, which promise to dig up Arrest Records, Marriage & Divorce Records, Criminal Records Data, Property Records, Bankruptcies, Judgments, and Liens.

By the way, property records and court filings (for marriage, divorce and bankruptcy) are kept on file by local municipalities, and many of them are available online. Check with your town or county clerk to see if they are searchable.

Promises, Promises...

As I warned at the opening of this article, there is something sleazy about many of the people-finder sites I found in the course of researching this article. They make unnecessary noise about “connecting to federal, state, and local databases,” “establishing a secure connection,” “searching billions of records,” and so on.

Spyfly promises to help you "View information about yourself, friends, family, and associates that Google can't show you." After presenting you with the initial search results, which tell you very little, Spyfly hits you up for two dollars. It's only two bucks; let’s get that report, shall we? Oh wait, the $2 fee is just for a 7-day trial, and you'll be on the hook for a $29.97/month subscription. How about “no?”

BeenVerified is another site that offers to help you "Search People & Public Records." They promise to "cross-check billions of data points and dozens of data sources" and "in a few minutes" you'll have access to all the public data they can find. But it’s a game. You have to endure screen after screen and several wasted minutes viewing fake progress bars, spinning circles, and dubious testimonials before they hit you with the sales pitch. And it turns out you can't even pay to view a report, they want you to sign up for a Membership that costs $26.89/month. And you know how hard those things are to cancel. No thanks, again.

In closing, I’ll mention one related free phone lookup service that I use regularly. Phone Validator can tell you if a phone number is mobile, landline, toll-free or VOIP. It also shows the phone company associated with that number. You may find this useful when deciding if you should send a text message or make a voice call.

Do you know of a truly free people-finder service? Your thoughts on this topic are welcome. Post your comment or question below…

 
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This article was posted by on 17 May 2021


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Most recent comments on "It’s Getting Harder to Find a People Finder"

(See all 25 comments for this article.)

Posted by:

Mark Hochstetler
17 May 2021

I do a lot of genealogy research that involves finding descendants (ie, living persons). My favorite go-to site the past five years is familytreenow.com. It lists most living people, their aliases, possible relatives, possible associates, known addresses (including current and sometimes back 30+ years), phone numbers (past and current, including cell #s) and sometimes email addresses--all FREE! There is a small ad on the page for more paid information, but I have never had to use it. I have used it to find classmates lost for 40+ years. The only people who are hard to find on this site are the Amish, who are practically invisible in today's electronic, data-driven society; which, of course, is what they prefer.


Posted by:

pw
17 May 2021

Yes, good info.
But how do you get off these lists....??

May not be possible, if this data is culled (or curated as some like to say) from public records...

No more privacy now.


Posted by:

Stan Greenberg
17 May 2021

FastPeopleSearch does NOT work for people with a
non-US IP.


Posted by:

Stan Greenberg
17 May 2021

Besides needing a US IP for FastPeopleSearch, (at least for me) using a VPN with US server also doesn't work.

There may be good legal reasons for not allowing non-US users, but it's a royal pain-in-the-you-know-what


Posted by:

Dave
17 May 2021

In an age when privacy is a fading concept, I am glad.


Posted by:

Jeanine
17 May 2021

Oh dear. For kicks I looked myself up in FastPeopleSearch, and I know none of people/relatives I'm supposedly associated with. These names are totally unfamiliar to me. Bob, is there any legitimate service that gets you unlisted from these directories and other commercial web databases?


Posted by:

gene
17 May 2021

Tried Fast People Search - found lots of people, but the information provided is sketchy, wrong phone numbers, wrong addresses (current), wrong marital status, wrong life status - so I'd take what I find there with a couple grains of salt. That said it did have a lot of useful information as well. Just verify.


Posted by:

Gary
17 May 2021

You can add Truthfinder to list of Co's to avoid as they also charge you $$ for info


Posted by:

Woody Seemann
17 May 2021

Phone Validator played the same searching game, and wanted $1.00 for 7 days, then a monthly subscription.


Posted by:

Cold City
17 May 2021

From Canada FastPeopleSearch says "access denied" ...


Posted by:

RandiO
17 May 2021

"...there is something sleazy about many of the people-finder sites..." In this new digital era, peepin' Toms and snooping on others have become acceptable behaviors... and where our civil-liberty and privacy concerns have been forced to the back of the bus.


Posted by:

RandiO
17 May 2021

without the use of carets it would have read:
"...there is something sleazy about many of the people-finder sites..." : Would this similar to prosecuting a bullet for manslaughter? In this new digital era, peepin' Toms and snooping on others have become acceptable behaviors... and where our civil-liberty and privacy concerns have been forced to the back of the bus.


Posted by:

Therrito
17 May 2021

Do you think that Phone Validator would be a good aide to report spam callers? I think that this may be important to some people.


Posted by:

Carol Y
18 May 2021

People Search Now https://www.peoplesearchnow.com/, True People Search https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/


Posted by:

Paul
18 May 2021

The only thing Phone Validator got right about my own phone number is it's a cell number. Everything else was wrong. Actually, I am quite happy about that!


Posted by:

dale
19 May 2021

Mark H
re familytreenow.com,

I shudda checked first, lotta bad bad reviews for this geneologyy site. Beware.


Posted by:

Marcus Zillman
19 May 2021

One of my active Subject Tracers is titled: Finding People Resources and Sites 2021 and is available at http://www.FindingPeople.info/ .


Posted by:

Emily Booth
21 May 2021

There are 100s of databases. Each one has their own rules. Many are foreign owned. It is very time consuming to remove yourself from these databases. I tried. I contacted the states attorney offices when 3 of them would not. I ended up using a service to monitor this for me. They do all the work to remove me from a database and send me quarterly reports. I was affected by the Experian hack. I don't want my personal information available on the internet. I realize that voter registration and real estate transactions are public but my family should not be involved.


Posted by:

Bill
22 May 2021

Try www.peekyou.com


Posted by:

Pam
25 May 2021

My question is how do these people end up getting all this information in the first place, when we cannot? They had to find it somewhere,too. As far as ancestry searches,one truly free place to search other than the library, is Church Of Latter-day Saints.


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