IRE -- Backgrounding people
IRE Session
Thursday, June 17: 11:20-12:20
Using the Web (and other online sources) to find people
Maloy Moore, Los Angeles Times
Alice Wertheim, AJC
Backgrounding people is an art, not a science
Inconsequential data can be key in discrimination
Maloy Moore:
Approach to finding people
Things to consider: what you know, what you want to find out and how much time you have to find the person
* What you know: personal data, contacts, associates
* Where to start:
- Voter reg databases have a lot of personal data -- name and address search (address search to find family members)
- Look for professional licenses
- Newspaper search (local and/or national) -- mention of political activity/donations, educational background/alumni activities
- Business records
- Property records (try to correlate names to associates found in preceding searches)
- PACER (federal docket and bankruptcy filings)
- Criminal and civil indexes (doesn't always provide info to determine that the records you find are of the person you're looking for)
Things to keep in mind:
* Names vary -- people use nicknames variably, middle names/initials variably; also, how will the databases handle pluralized and hyphenated/accented names
* Misspellings/variants happen -- be flexible
* Vital Check - web resource -- can verify the county where a marriage/birth/death certificate is issued
Alice Wertheim:
Assess what you know about a person before you start your search -- do you have the full name? Is the address you have business or residential?
Keep in mind variations in name
If you know the SSN, you have it made vis-a-vis fee-based services
Don't assume anything -- people don't always live in the town they work; people may own businesses on the side; famous people don't necessarily have unlisted numbers; property may be in a spouse's name
Start with what's free and amass whatever info you can, then switch to fee-based resources
When doing a name search on the Internet/on a search engine, put the name in quotes to search as a phrase
There are free resources for finding neighbors
The criss-cross directory is a good place to confirm/find basic details
Political donations databases
If someone has a website, check out the registration of the website (WHOIS)
University website directories are great resources to find: experts (and info on those experts)
Corporate websites (particularly the corporate/press section) are also rich in info
SearchSystems.net -- thousands of links to record databases by geographic records
Go with reputable, well-established databases, know how often they're updated
Military records: hard to get (impossible without the consent of the person), but findable
Criminal background checks -- varies from state to state; no one easy way to do such checks on the web; a lot of records require consent from the individual
School information -- high school info has different restrictions than colleges/universities due to minor status of students -- may be possible to look through old yearbooks at the school site with prior consent of the school; college info is easier to get, via registrar's office, etc.
Be careful and be thorough
What's NOT available --
Financial records, with the following exceptions: bankruptcy records/dockets
Local court records, to some extent (but there are some exceptions ... look into this for your area)
Medical records
Comments
Sounds like you're getting a lot out of being in Atlanta. There's a fantastic article in the June issue of Searcher Mag. on the subject of backgrounding people. It's on Infotrac if you don't have access to the print edition.
Posted by: Tricia | June 18, 2004 08:32 AM
We actually have that issue in the library. I'll see if I can photocopy it to read on public transit. Thank you ...
Posted by: misseli | June 18, 2004 10:06 PM