Name and Address Search

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.

• Switchboard
• Yahoo People

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...