In this guide, we’ll be talking about how to find someone you went to school with, and that’s not so hard if you follow the tips and tricks we mention. In fact, the search engines can help a lot if you know how to tweak the search parameters to find long-lost classmates and friends, but for faster results, there are advanced algorithms that make things easier.
4 ways to find old friends from school
No matter if you want to find classmates from high school, elementary school, or university, everything starts with basic details you know about your old friend. Some of these details can be the school name, the person’s name, photo, or an email address. If you already had a chance to note a phone number, even the landline one for the missing person in question, that can be much better as every contact information can bring more data.
1. Search on social media
Finding your school friends on Facebook may not take longer than a few minutes if they have profiles there, other social networks like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and others are also good places to find your old connections.
Here are some tips on finding old friends on Facebook search, first of all, make sure you’re logged into your account, that’s how the system works there, then, type in the search box one of your friend’s details like first name, middle name, etc, and from the search filter tool, click on “People”, then, “Education” and type the school name, here is a screenshot example on doing that.
Here is a note about using other options to find people you used to do home tasks with or went to elementary school together, in many cases, people search for each other, and so, they post about a missed connection on Craigslist or other related websites.
That means, there is always a possibility that the person you look for is missing you and he already searched for your contact details online, so, visit the Craigslist “missed connections” tab and just search after selecting your city or state.
We remember lots of guys posting about their old classmates they used to hang out with after school, and because the website is so big, you need to spend some time searching, and why not posting about your best friend there?
For those who need to find old friends on Instagram, the contact list is needed to return any person who created an account on the platform. So, if you don’t have the phone number, the search won’t be done as Instagram needs to access the contacts. For that reason, we strongly recommend adding any old phone number you know, even the one from decades ago can find if there is any user who registered through it.
2. Search by photo
Believe it or not, by using any of your old school pictures, you may find many of your elementary school photos that people (old classmates) posted on their own social media posts, Google, or other sites.
Let’s say for example, that you saved photos of someone you used to go with to school, what you can do is to scan that picture and reverse lookup it with tools like TinEye or even other options such as Google images.
When you want to look for old friends online, make sure you use acceptable image resolution, however, if you can’t get that quality, avoid uploading damaged files, instead, it’s a good idea to crop the scan of the image and extract the upper body section or the headshot photo only, so, you help the sites to search for the exact person on a photo.
Remember that searching for someone you used to talk to or went to school through a photo can bring lots of search information to filter and go through, so, be patient with that and compare the data you get in order to uncover the truth and reconnect.
3. Google their names
By using Google, you get access to the world’s largest search engine with billions of records and names, even better, you can find many of your old friends with only their first name, but make sure you add the location where they lived or the city where they used to go frequently. This additional information can help in finding every piece of information like the contact detail and blogs.
Bing is also good for finding old friends, even by the maiden name, but, add that inside quotes to save time and only get the person you looked for. There are more search sites, but the issue is that they’re also small and limited in finding details.
4. Try dedicated people search sites
This can help a lot, especially when you want to find a loved one from the days of your school, all you have to do is typing the first name, and select the state or the city if you want, then, scroll through the profiles and you’ll find his or her contact details, location, and even the social media accounts if that’s available.
Wondering how you can reconnect with someone you used to study with? Then, take a moment and see if you previously exchanged emails, if that’s true, then, you have the most powerful way to find people online using their emails. Even if the email address is not being used anymore, it’s still a good way to trace people and find their social profiles with photos and data.
Now, let’s talk about another search that’s great, it’s the home address, so, by typing the street address of your old classmate, you may get his actual place where he lives and see the cell number he owns, the emails, etc… Just type in the search box the exact address and see the search result.
Tips on finding old school friends
Above are the best ways to search and find old classmates even from the old days of your elementary school, if the person has an online presence on social media or on other websites, it could be easy to locate them. On the other hand, once someone is invisible online or has no trace on the Internet, then, there will be more steps needed to find him or her.
That being said, many search sites are able to trace individuals in the USA even with no traces on the visible web, sometimes, a single comment on Facebook can be useful to link profiles together and distinguish between relatives, friends, and missing people from years ago, so, always keep your optimism, and who knows? You may find many of your old friends and not just one.
Sometimes, chance plays a big role in locating loved ones, even more, many people use the Internet to find old friends on Snapchat, Facebook, and other social media sites. All that starts with just a first name, location, or other basic details, so, give yourself the chance to get most of the web search.
By searching for your old classmate’s name, email address, or other details like photos, websites and search engines can help you all the way to find his actual contact details and information, but that’s not always easy to get, just change the search option and use all the above ways that work. Meantime, when you find a piece of information about the boy or the girl you used to study with, make sure you take note of that as it can show you more data in other searches and even show you, teachers and other people.
