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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.

We actually have that issue in the library. I'll see if I can photocopy it to read on public transit. Thank you ...