How to Find Your Former Classmates Online
Nothing is more exciting than the feeling of reuniting with your long-lost friends from school. Meeting with your schoolmates after a very long time is an unmatched event. You get to catch up or reminisce about your school days and, in some way, get close to reliving them. Finding and reconnecting with your former classmates could be done in many ways, but the most common is over a class reunion party. Looking for someone you have not seen or met for a long time is challenging, but the Internet has made it much easier. With the latest technologies, tracking someone down is far less complicated.
Here are some tips to guide you through this adventure.
Package Yourself
Finding former classmates takes strategy, organization, and discipline. Before you start, decide whether your work will be automated or in person. Since this is an electronic search, consider organizing the work in a systematic way. Whichever method you choose, gather all the necessary information about your former classmates and helpful resources to track them down. Prepare all this info neatly, preferably in a spreadsheet, to make filling in the missing details easy.
Conduct a Basic Internet Search
The success of finding anyone online greatly lies in the details you can find about them. Search engines can help you gather basic information. Google is the number one go-to site for such tasks. However, less popular search engines could also surprisingly give decent results.
Begin the search by looking up your classmate’s full name. Go past the first results page to broaden your results. You can add more information, like their nicknames, neighborhood, or the school you studied at, to narrow down the results.
Use Background Check Services
Although most background check sites do not offer a direct way to contact a person, they are very helpful in building a stronger profile of the people you are looking for. These services run background checks on properties owned, judicial activities, and vehicle records based on the available public records. However, some sites might have contact information but require you to pay a fee to get access.
Use Dedicated Niche People Search Sites
Niche people search sites and associations are useful in finding former classmates. For most commercial alumni sites, a membership fee is needed to access results, including photos, contact details, and profiles. Some sites allow you to even message others on the site.
This method only works if your school has an active alumni association. However, it may be not very effective because some organizations hesitate to give out their members’ details.
Leverage Online Directories
PhoneHistory and other superior online directories are in the business of gathering data from the Internet open resources to help find a person online more easily. Although most of them might require you to pay for their services upfront, they are worth each dime.
Online directories’ search results include people’s names, locations, close relatives, and addresses. Some include ages or dates of birth to help specify your results.
Browse Online Public Records
Today, public records are available online and at no cost. Some data searches in government records can provide one’s address and contact details. The General Register Records stores vital records of a person, including birth, adoption, marriage, civil records, and death certificates. To narrow down your search to the particular state you want these records from, quote the type of records you are looking for in your search, then the state’s name. Only several states have their public records available online. If the state in question has not put up its records on the Internet, consider asking for the vital records in person.
Make it Easy to be Found by Your Former Classmates
Reverse psychology can help you find your former classmates by assisting them to find you. What comes up on search engines when you look up your name? Start a website or forum for connecting with former classmates. Write a bit about looking for your classmates and include some information about them, such as the school’s name. Be sure to capture the friends you had in common and the year of graduation. Avoid applying sensitive details, such as addresses and contact. Although the chances are low, this indirect approach may provide some benefits in the future.
Check Your Former School’s Students Directory
Many institutions, including high schools, keep a record of their former students. These institutions maintain registries in the records office with information about their former attendees. Try contacting your former place of study and find out if such records are available online. On rare occasions, you might even find more details than you initially wanted, their location, in particular.
Look on Social Networking Sites
While the search may bring up the exact classmates in question, helpful indirect links to close people might pop up as well. Different platforms have unique features for finding people. LinkedIn, for example, will give search results based on one’s career profile. Facebook has an algorithm that calculates the things in common, such as school attended, to display suggestions of friends you might know. Other platforms, namely Instagram, might bring up a family function that helps narrow down a search.
Contact Your School Friends
Life gives us many friends, and being in school is no exception. Now, this is the time to rekindle this relationship over coffee or dinner. Take the time to talk about all the classmates that made school worthwhile and what they’re doing now. You will likely hear about names you possibly forgot, and nothing could be so heartwarming.
It would also be great to go over some of your fondest memories and share what you have been up to since you parted ways after graduation. To avoid confrontations, do not push for a long conversation if there are signs of discomfort. Instead, keep it brief and get straight to the point.
Conclusion
If the search for your former classmates is unsuccessful even after following the above steps, they have possibly chosen to keep their affairs private. If your search is successful, avoid revealing a lot of personal details when you meet up. Remember, a lot has changed since you last made contact. Re-establishing a bond might take time, even if it happens. Keep an opportunistic mind, but be open to any possibilities.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
