How to locate lost family and friends – Steps to take before hiring a Private Investigator

How to locate lost family and friends.

There are endless circumstances that can separate people.  Adoption, family strife, travel, moving, death, marriage and sheer time-lapse are some of the more common reasons.

Whatever the reason is, sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, you find yourself wondering about that relative. Are they doing well, where are they living, are they even alive?  The urge to find them or find answers pulls at you, but the search to find them seems so overwhelming. Where can you start?

It can be utterly crushing and very difficult to try and search for this person alone or on the internet.  A lot of “leads” to their whereabouts may be old news or completely inaccurate.  It’s very easy to get disheartened by your search.  Just when you think you found a current address or a phone number, you find out that they have moved years ago or maybe the number is disconnected.  Maybe the person you seek is trying not to be found for whatever reason.

At the CMP Protective and Investigative Group we routinely conduct investigative searches for long lost friends and family members.  Here are a few things to be aware of before starting this process.

NAME GAME

Knowing a person’s name is important.  You are probably thinking to yourself I know their name.  I have news for you, names can and do change.  The name you knew, may not have been their legal name.

Example: Jim Smith may have been what you knew, but his legal name may be James Smith, Jameson Smith, Billy-James Smith (the combinations are endless) and Jim may be an abbreviated version.  People also switch their first and middle names, Walter Jim Smith, Walter James Smith, Walter Jameson Smith…etc.

Already, you can see that this can be a laborious process.  People also change their names through marriage (or multiple marriages), a sex change or just out of sheer desire of not being found.

How do we overcome this – by having as much information as possible before beginning.   No piece of information is irrelevant.  Usually we can search a person using their name, date of birth or approximate age, places lived or a social security number.  By linking pieces of information together we are able to sort through viable leads.

Here are three ways YOU can find someone that you are looking for or learn more information that may be turned over to a private investigator to finish what you’ve started. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

Currently, there are 1.28 billion (yes billion) people with Facebook accounts out of the approximate 7 billion people on the planet.  That’s a great number!  By finding other family and friends who knew your missing loved, one more piece of information can be gathered to better locate the missing person.  Once again, even if they are on social media, they may go by another name that what you knew.

STATE RECORDS

Certain occupations require state issued licenses (nurses, private investigators, architects, accountants – to name a few) in order to practice.  If you knew, that at one time, your missing person worked in licensed practitioner, it may offer another avenue of locating them.

FEDERAL RECORDS

If you’re loved one was once a pilot or in the military we may be able to locate them through federal records.  This is not the best choice, because of how time consuming and tedious it can be.  Using the Freedom of Information Act it’s possible to request military records, even if you are next of kin.

INTERVIEWS

Contact people who may have knew them (i.e. family members, friends, employers, neighbors, etc.).  Even if you cannot put together all the pieces yet, it’s still helpful to have them.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATION

If you have run into dead end after dead end, let a professional private investigative firm handle your investigation. Supply the firm with all the information you have obtained.

A professional firm should have employees that are former law enforcement with decades of experience at their disposal.  Investigators not only have access to proprietary data bases, but will physically pull records that you may not be able to obtain yourself.