Finding people by email
More and more people use the net to locate those people they used to know but have lost contact with. There are various ways of doing this and this article explores whether using email alone is the best way of finding long lost friends and relations.
There’s a lot of talk about something called 6 degrees of separation at present. We all have “friends of friends” and if you multiply that by 6, it’s a lot of contacts to explore. In this way A knows B, who knows C, who knows D, who knows E, who knows F who knows, for example the Queen!
But you cannot expect a concept like 6 degrees of separation to be valid in real life at all times. But if you persevere you can have a degree of success in finding people, simply by using an email address, rather than searching the web.
Firstly, if you have any social networking site memberships, use the contacts there to ask if anyone can help you find someone. For every 100 friends you have on a networked site, just one email can generate at least a few results.
From your addresses, highlight the one you want to trace and send out a request for assistance to do so. All you get may be people finder sites, but these will at least give a start - even if they are not really email methods of finding someone.
Remember though, however you search, that some people may not wish to be found, so they have taken care to ensure that they do not have a widely known email address and are not registered with any networking sites, nor do they have their contact details on any websites, or maybe they just have a new email address. In which case you will simply find that they remain elusive and you need to respect their privacy.
But if you’re looking for someone, there may be better methods than email, although it’s a good idea to begin with email. Using a combination of sites for search, people finding and social networking will give you the very best results. You should never use 6 degrees of separation alone - you need to use everything you can to find someone.
