Finding a person in this over-crowded world is not easy. You need to be really skilled if you want to master the art of searching for a person. Most of the people hire a private investigator for this job if it involves legal matters. But hiring a private investigator is costly and finding a good one is tiresome. You can get the skill to find a person as well if you follow some steps.

Generally, people find their biological parents, a relative who is not in touch for years, ex-wife/ex-husband or children who left home many years back. If you are searching for a person, mostly you will get the information about him in the web but sometimes there are people who do not like to be on the web or they maintain their privacy to such an extent that web is not able to find them.

Therefore, to be an expert you must focus on following points even before you start –

Learn about limitations of private investigations

There are a lot of limitations while you are trying to find a person. If you think you can track a person by his/her name or if you get information of the city they live in, or hotel name they are staying in – it is practically an impossible thought. Like a good private investigator, you have to always check some important

details while finding a person like their name, living city, and some details or persons related to their lives. Otherwise, you will face a hard time finding them.

There are tools to help you!

There are some highly professional databases which a top private investigator will use for the investigations. You can use them too. Tools like the Lexis Nexis, IRB, and the TLO, provide wonderful platforms to make your job easy. Some free or paid subscription based websites like Archive.org and the Ancestry.com. Mining social media is another fabulous option as everyone uses these platforms today.

Correct Facts go a long way

While searching a person, a good private investigator will always try to collect as many as factual information as possible, for example the place where the person lived, date of birth, age, attended schools, his or her workplace information or the business information run by the person. The name of his siblings, parent, neighbors, old friends, spouses can be helpful in the investigation too. You have to follow the same path.

Any information can help you at any point in time so you have to collect them very carefully and as accurately as possible. You also need to decide which fact is true and which one is manufactured. Another thing which you must take care of while taking a note is the correct spelling of any name or place as wrong spelling will take you and your investigation in the wrong direction.

If you know the name of the person and a few details about him/her like previous phone number or city where he lived, you can collect a huge amount of detail from the following –

* Criminal Records

* Licenses

* Lawsuits

* Medical Records

* Sexual Offender Registry

* Credit scores/credit history etc.

But in that case, you have to get in touch with respective authorities and get some permissions to access records.

Any Available Information is valuable

You have to research with your full potential and check out each and every resource you have. It is too helpful if you have information like professional licenses, college yearbook, property records, telephone books, legal records, military records, about a person you are trying to find. Information like school name or even a classmate’s name can get you there. So, understanding the available information and finding ways to use them is important.

Take some time

Searching for a person with limited information is time consuming, complex and sometimes may be costly. Therefore, it is very important to have patience and give this whole process some time. Also, you have to move step by step to get there.

Private Investigation is a sole bread and butter for many people. So, you can understand that this is not that simple. Being an expert in finding people needs time, patience, resources and some common sense.