Finding Old Friends Online

By Elizabeth Wasserman

When Noreen Foster set out to organize her 20th reunion from Earl L. Vandermeulen High School earlier this year, tracking down her classmates was tough.  First, the class records were stored in the basement of the school, on an old broken computer. As to be expected, many of her classmates had gotten married and changed names, or had moved out of the Jefferson, New York area.

But when Foster started using the Internet, she found the class of 1986 without ever leaving the house: She used a web site that connects you with friends from your past called Classmates. Her friends also helped her by scouring search engines, such as Google, and Internet directories such as AnyWho and Switchboard. "It would have been incredibly difficult to do without the Internet," Foster says. The reunion was a hit, attracting more than half the graduating class to a weekend of parties this August.

Social networking web sites are definitely not just for kids anymore. These networking sites -- from MySpace to Facebook -- now provide a way to electronically keep in touch with friends without putting pen to paper or spending 30 minutes on the phone. Want to find people from your past? Here are four ways to do it:

1. Go where the teens hang -- really
OK, there are people in their 30s (or even in their 40s or 50s) who have profiles on MySpace and some even dispense with the saucy language and cheesecake photos. To connect with former pals, sign up at the popular web site using your real name so friends can find you -- and so they will recognize your name if you invite them to be your "friend" on the site, too.

Marty Bryant, who works at an online marketing firm in a Washington, D.C. suburb, is using MySpace to help organize her 10-year reunion from Herndon High School. "I've only had a MySpace page for a month and I have close to 100 friends already and at least 30 to 40 percent of 'my friends' graduated in my same class," she says.

These networking sites are proliferating like wild fire on the Internet and now include Orkut, Yahoo 360, and the pioneering Friendster. A lot of people use screen names on these sites versus their real names so it can be hard, but not impossible, to find a particular person. Still, most also allow you to search by school and graduation year, which might make it easier to track down that old crush.

2. Gather at the virtual water cooler
Professionals are turning to job-hunting networks, such as Jobster, to network with former colleagues or be "discovered" by companies looking to hire. People also share information about different companies, get the scoop on what it's like to work in certain industries, or pick up insider gossip.

The popular LinkedIn has more than 6.5 million professionals in 130 industries registered. You sign up and create a profile, including your work history. This helps you find -- and be found -- by former colleagues, clients, or partners. The site is free but also offers paid accounts, starting at $20 per month, that help you pursue sales leads, contact possible job candidates, or find business partners. But a word of caution: Many of the people who sign up do so through friends and may not want to be solicited by strangers.

3. Seek out your school colors
As Foster and Bryant found, there are sites designed just to connect you with your old classmates. One site, fittingly called Reunion, lets you create a profile, post photos, be added to your high school list, and search for friends among the site's 25 million members. A premium membership costs $36 a year and allows you to see who has searched for you or to send messages to any member. The site also has tools for planning reunions and other events. Classmates has 40 million members and is pretty similar, with premium features starting at $39 annually.

In her case, Bryant and some friends also contracted with Capitol Reunions & Events, a Virginia firm, to help track down the remaining classmates online. "The pay sites are worth it to get the word out and also to help when you're having a difficult time finding classmates," Bryant says.

4. Play private eye
If you still can't find a long-lost friend or love, there are people-finder sites you can use to dig deeper. InfoSpace allows you to plug in a name and pull information from a variety of search engines. Pretrieve and vitalrec are free search engines that scour public records for addresses and phone numbers.

One of the most useful tools is ZabaSearch, where you can search for a person's address and phone numbers for free. Or starting at $45 per search, Intelius lets you order online a full background check on someone -- from bankruptcy to criminal checks, small claims judgments, or address history. If at first you don't succeed in finding an old pal, try searching for his or her relative (which is especially helpful if you are trying to track down a woman who may have married and changed her name).

When all is said and done, using the web to connect with former friends is often worth the legwork. "The people turned out to be fun and great," Foster says reflecting on the reunion that was made possible by her Internet sleuthing. "Twenty years makes a big difference. All that silly stuff about what happened in high school doesn't matter anymore."