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How to Find a Lost Friend. You vowed to be best friends forever, but it isn’t uncommon
to lose touch with your childhood friends over the years. It's never too late to re-establish
contact with an old friend. You will need Internet access Basic information about your
friend and persistence. Step 1. Enter your friend’s first, middle, and last name in
quotation marks to initiate a specific search in Google or Yahoo. Don’t forget to ask
your family and friends if they have any current information before you begin your search.
Step 2. Scour online public record databases to gather more information about your friend.
Search property records, birth and death records, census data, marriage certificates, and military
records, among countless other databases. Step 3. Search social networking sites such
as Facebook, My Space, and LinkedIn to discover your friend’s whereabouts. But be aware
of privacy settings that may limit the available information. Step 4. Comb through the online
directory or message board of your friend’s alumni association. Many such sites will require
you to be an alumnus and to join the alumni association before access is made available.
Step 5. Pay a fee to use a people search service. Many online detective services allow you to
leave messages for loved ones and search the replies. Consider hiring a private investigator.
Step 6. Search through the omitted, deep web information via a pay service -- these companies
sift through public records and store profiles. Use any acquired clues to further refine your
search. Did you know Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, smoked a pipe,
played the violin, and used ***.