Find old acquaintances on the Internet to find out how they are doing. There are several ways to track down friends and acquaintances from the past online.
find someone from the past
Is there a classmate, neighbour, friend or friend from the past that you have lost sight of? You can often find a few things online. With these tips you can start the search. It’s nice to see how they are doing or to get in touch with them!
A good starting point for a search for an old acquaintance is Google. The search engine scours the entire internet for results. A good tip is to enclose the entire name in double quotes. Then Google searches specifically for the combination between first and last name.
- Go to google.com.
- Type the name and start and end with double quotes. For example: “Jan Pieterse”.
If the name is not in double quotes, Google will also search for results that contain one of the search terms. So ‘Jan’ or ‘Pieterse’. That produces much more wrong results.
school desk
Old class photos can be found on the Schoolbank website. Type in a name, or the name of the school you went to, and find the correct year. School desk works with free accounts. It is possible to search without an account, but an account is required to view most results.
- Go to Schoolbank.nl.
- Click on the top right Register for free.
- Enter your email address.
- Enter your first and last name.
- Enter your date of birth.
- Choose a password.
- Tick that you agree with the terms and conditions of Schoolbank.
- click on Get on.
First go to your mailbox to confirm the registration email. After this you can search for classmates on Schoolbank.nl, but you can also fill in your own profile or add class photos yourself.
If that old friend you’re looking for has a Facebook account, you can find them that way. It is useful if you also have a Facebook account, then the search options are more extensive. You can read all about creating a Facebook account in the article “Creating Facebook: creating an account and finding friends”.
In short, the search for an old acquaintance goes like this:
- Go to Facebook.com and log in.
- Click on the search bar at the top.
- Type the name of the person you are looking for and press Enter.
- At the top of the screen are several filters, such as messages, people and photos. Click on ‘People’.
- Some people have more information, such as a place of residence or (former) job. This depends on how public their profile is.
- If you have the right person for you, you can add him or her as a friend on Facebook. Then click on Add.