People use the net for many things, but increasingly one use is finding people they’ve lost connection with or that they’d like to see again. 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.

One popular idea at the moment is called “six degrees of separation”. If we multiply our exiting connections by 6, we probably have someone we can claim connection with. So A knows B. And B knows C. And C knows D. D knows F, who knows the Pope!

However, you cannot rely on 6 degrees of separation as a reliable idea. 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.

Simply take your address book and mark the address you want to track down, then email a request for help to do this. This may just simply give people finder sites, and these aren’t really email methods of finding people,but it’s a headstart.

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. If this is the case, they remain hidden and you just need to accept their privacy is something beyond your control.

However, when you want to locate people, email is a great method (but email alone may not be the best method). The best results will come from using all 3 methods – web search, social networking sites and also people finder sites. You need to use all the means you can to search, not just six degrees of separation.

 

Tagged with: find email addresses • trace lost people

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