Tips on finding old friends

[PriscillaTheHun]

A few of us are trying to organise a school reunion. But we're really struggling to find everyone - especially the women who have got married and now have different surnames.

So do you have any tips on finding people?

If any of them had brothers, you could try looking up the brother on Facebook as brother much less likely to have changed name and might be able to put you in touch with sister?

Any ideas of their parents' addresses? Or FB post about the event to your friends, and ask anyone who knows "the missing people" to tell them, or give you their details? If you have a class photo, post it up with the names you know and ask others to fill in the blanks - they may give you some FB contacts.

I have found all of my old school friends. Almost everyone leaves an online trace. We have a lovely WhatsApp group which had started with the people who had kept in touch and is now the whole year group, less a couple who were approached but were not interested.

Start with the old school. Does it have a facebook page/group? If yes, trawl back through every post for the last few years. Check each and every comment and like for every post. You'll probably find one or two 'maybes' there. Send them a private message. For the people who commented/reacted to a post, open their profile and look at their Friends list.
Keep a look out for older siblings as well. Look at the list of their Facebook friends (if you can).

You have to google using Boolean search terms. Start with the unusual names, let's say imaginary person Adonica Anderson from a Berkshire school.
Type this in the search bar:
"Adonica Anderson" AND "Berkshire"
Look at the image results as well.
If you are bombarded with information about an Adonica Anderson who is an author, type this in the search bar:
"Adonica Anderson" AND "Berkshire" -author
This will remove all results with the word author. You can add lots of -words to hone the search.

Think hard. Did Adonica study Engineering at Bristol Uni? Lots of people settle in the area they went to uni. Or did she go and do a beauty course? Or join the navy? Everything you remember can be used to hone your search. Little scraps of information gradually emerge.

If you can remember Adonica's brothers name Alexis you can google
"Adonica" AND "Alexis". This sometimes takes you to a death announcement of a relative, but it also gives you other names to search with. If you get a sniff of a definite area you can google the name with the phone area code - it can take to you a work address.
"Adonica" AND "0118" for Reading in Berkshire.

You can also limit your google search to specific sites like this:
"Adonica Anderson" AND "Alexis" site:Facebook.com

I know I sound like a stalker, but I used to do tracing for a living and only use my powers for good :-)
(If an Adonica Anderson Googles herself this could be freaky lol)
Good luck.

Facebook not only any related school groups but also local news ones. Found a few that way over the years.

If people don’t want to be found, they won’t leave a trail.

Please don’t contact parents. It’s freaky and intrusive. Some will be dead of course and others will be elderly like mine and nervous of crazy phone calls etc.

With social media, if old school friends wanted to be in touch, they would be. Some people do not wish to be “looked up” by old school friends. Do not phone parents or brothers, it is intrusive.

Thank you for all your tips. I'll look into those.

And no I don't think I'll be phoning anyone's parents.