Name and Address Search
I'm trying to reconnect with some old friends, but I'm having trouble finding their address and telephone numbers. Can you tell me where to look for good people finder tools that offer searches for telephone, email and address listings? |
Finding People Online
Whenever people ask me this question, I tell them about my favorite name, phone and address search tool -- Infospace. At the InfoSpace home page, click on White Pages then you can key in the last name, first name, city and state to start your search for someone in the USA. Here's are some helpful tips to speed up your InfoSpace searching:
- Don't enter a first name, or try using just a first initial. The person may be listed under a nickname or a spouse's name.
- If a very specific search fails, try leaving one or more of the fields blank.
If you're after someone outside the USA, Infospace also has listings for Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and a page with links to other phone directories around the world. Click on "World Directories" at the Infospace home page to get there.
Finding Businesses
To do a search for a Business, click on the Yellow Pages tab at the Infospace home page. You can enter a business name or type, and the city, state to search in. The same tips apply here - sometimes being vague is better.
Reverse Lookups
In addition to white (individual) and yellow (business) page listings for the USA and many other countries, InfoSpace offers reverse lookups
on Phone Numbers, Street Addresses, Email Addresses, and Area Codes. This means you can find a person's name and address if all you know is
the phone number. Or you could find someone's name and phone number if you know just the street address. From the InfoSpace home page,
click on search by phone or near an address.
This can come in handy if you're browsing the classifieds. Imagine this scenario... You see a car advertised in your local newspaper, and you'd like to know more about it. Just do a reverse phone number search at Infospace and you now know the name and address of the person selling the car. You could even drive by and have a look at the car, since Infospace also provides a map and driving directions.
Get To Know The Neighbors
Here's a little trick I stumbled into: Infospace can tell you the names of everyone on your street. Just omit the street number on the Search by Phone/Address Lookup screen, and it will return ALL of the listings for that street.
When you find a person through Infospace, whether it's via a regular name search or reverse lookup, Infospace also provides handy links to business, government offices, and a city guide for the city where the person lives.
Jane... Get Me Off This Crazy Thing!
That's handy. But some people find it scary. So if you DON'T want to be found in an online directory, use the Remove feature. At Infospace, just find yourself with a search, then click the "Update/Remove" link to change or remove your own listing. You should also visit the other popular people directories listed below and take a similar action.
It's good to know about these alternate people finders for another reason. Even though the Infospace directory is quite extensive, and is updated several times a year, you may not find the person you're looking for. If that's the case, try the other sites since they all use different databases.
Do you have a favorite address search tool that's not mentioned here? Post your comments below...
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This article was posted by Bob Rankin on 14 Apr 2006
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Name and Address Search (Posted: 14 Apr 2006)
Source: https://askbobrankin.com/name_and_address_search.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
Most recent comments on "Name and Address Search"
Posted by:
Sue
25 Apr 2006
Hey Bob, You forgot one of the coolest sites for people/address/phone/email searching! Find it here:
http://theultimates.com/
you enter your search info ONCE, and it automatically places it in the other search engines too, then you click on those individually.
Posted by:
Johnny
25 Apr 2006
I think you should know about an ad supported piece of software that searches several online directories. I have no affiliation with the owner other than to use his software on a daily basis. Argali is by far the fastest and easiest way to find someone's name, address and phone number online. The web site is: http://www.argali.com
Posted by:
Robert Odell
25 Apr 2006
Very interesting, as usual. Are you aware that the multitude of Finding People websites almost entirely omit the US Virgin Islands, and generally Puerto Rico? If you know any sites including these areas I'd appreciate knowing about them.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I followed the World Directories link at Infospace, then selected More under North America, and found Infobel North America and Caribbean Directory at
http://www.infobel.com/teldir/teldir.asp?page=/eng/namc
Posted by:
Jim
25 Apr 2006
More information on 'Get To Know The Neighbors' -Using a house number of 26** will limit the search to house numbers beginning with 26.
Posted by:
Martin Belinsky
25 Apr 2006
Infospace only appears to search by address for businesses.
EDITOR'S NOTE: No, it does residential too... See
http://www.infospace.com/home/white-pages/reverse-address
Posted by:
mike w
26 Apr 2006
With public records and free people searches you get what you pay for. Just be careful of the web sites that offer a multitude of so called free stuff for one low year fee. You get what you pay for. Try these guys.. they seem to know how to find stuff that's more difficult to get for free. They do charge a fee. http://www.bestpeoplesearch.com
Posted by:
KinK
02 May 2006
Reverse searching a phone number is useless to try on any service. Too many people have cell phones and there's no record of those numbers cataloged for reference by the public.
A free search that caused a lot of hoopla last year is ZabaSearch . . . It's got a whole bunch of info, with many errors here and there of confused family member names or birthdates, but if someone wants to find you bad enough they can sort through easy enough. This is why many people with restraining orders, or stalking fears, or abusive mates got all outta whack (rightfully so) about ZabaSearch being so easy to access and for free. Check it out and see what they've got for you and your neighbors!
Posted by:
Samuel
21 Jul 2009
Dear Bob,
This is a website I stumbled on while searching for financial records and other info while job hunting. It has been more revealing for me than a dozen + 'yellow' or 'white' page listing sites.
http://www.manta.com/
Posted by:
Darryl
25 Jul 2009
I live in Canada, and I'm not seeing any of the white pages, yellow pages, reverse lookup, etc. In fact, I found this on the FAQ page (http://support.infospace.com/faq/):
"Can I Search for Someone by Phone Number?
Unfortunately reverse directory searches are not supported at this time."
"Can I Search for Listings Outside the United States?
International business and people searches are not available at this time."
This site also seems to use the same search engines that Dogpile uses.
Posted by:
michelle
12 Oct 2010
I am looking for my aunt. Have not had any luck on zaba, whitpages, address.com, 123.com please is there any other way I can search. I know she is i florida some where and I have an adress she recently lived. any tips or ideas. Its very important.. thanks ,, michelle
Posted by:
DIANA
14 Mar 2012
i HAVE A PHONE NUMBER WHO HAS BEEN CALLING STRANGE HOURS WHERE DO i GO TO FIND THE NAME ON ACCOUNT? dIANA
Posted by:
John Bond
11 Apr 2014
I use this for phone numbers. I sometimes get a call from a number that has a name I don't recognize, so I look them up to see who it is. Unfortunately my useless cellphone doesn't have caller Id.
John Bond | http://www.ryanasphalt.com
Posted by:
mark
15 Jan 2015
Your comments about searching on info space...you said to click on the white pages or yellow pages on info space's home page. THERE IS NO WHITE PAGES OR YELLOW PAGES LISTED ON IT'S HOME PAGE
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry, that was an old article. I've replaced it with this one: http://askbobrankin.com/free_people_search_tools.html