What You Need to Find an Old Girlfriend in the UK?
Firstly, you should try to remember everything about her. Her name, address, friends, occupation, family members – anything can be of help!
Let’s come up with an example to explain what to do. Let’s say we’re trying to find a woman named Jean Watson who was born in Brighton.
1. Name: Jean Watson.
2. Place she was born: Brighton.
The next best thing would be to find her date of birth. Usually, amongst young people at the time, the age gap was narrow. So, we can take an age range according to the client’s age.
So, we research Jean Watson’s birth records between, say – in your case, 1946 to 1949.
Next Steps to Find an Old Girlfriend
We begin the task of finding an old girlfriend by initially searching for Jean Watson’s 46-49 Brighton. If we find no listing we just widen the net. If there are no promising results, we start searching the country of Sussex.
At the same time, through various directories, we searched any parents’ listings to establish if any siblings which might help later on.
Once we have a target of say 6 possibilities, we then try to find out where they are today.
There are free records of marriages which go up to 1983. By a process of elimination, we can pin it down to a handful.
Tell John Who You Are Hoping to Find
Sometimes it helps to put it into words. Tell John who you are hoping to find and what you remember about them. Every detail counts, even the small ones.
Going Through the Records
We now have to put it all together. This becomes somewhat more tricky, involving electoral register searches, and more complicated by the fact that these days people can opt out of being publicly listed. 192.com is a good start but you have to pay. If you want to read more about it, read our article about finding someone’s address.
It’s also questionable whether the data is up-to-date. Moreover, as mentioned above, it does not include those people who opted out.
If you are sure about her place of birth, you could visit the local town hall and request to view the “full” current electoral register. Incidentally, Town Halls are the only places where you can peruse the fully listed electoral register, but you have to be supervised.
Other Approaches to Find an Old Girlfriend
There are other “paid-for” directories. Some give instant listings of all persons with the same surname, whatever the married surname is. It also lists any other residents, which is great.
If you know she married Michael…? The field might then be narrowed to just a couple of individuals. Often there is a phone number too. So, as follows: Jean Smith married: Michael Babbage in 1972. Married in the district of Luton in Bedfordshire.
We then search to include both Michael and Jean Babbage. There might be two or three listings, and we start with the ones located nearest to Luton. If none are whom we are looking for, we extend the search to the entire UK.
Finding a Lost Sweetheart
What about if she/he divorced and has a new surname? There are online sites which list these events. Also, there are online listings for deceased persons. Of course, the task can be ‘muddied’ if she moves abroad. But not insurmountable, especially if we have the names of Siblings, which I mentioned earlier. Chances are they haven’t all moved abroad.
The above is a basic outline of what is involved when people start searching.
Another Part of the Research: Relatives such as Cousins
We can go through the same process as described above. However, we are then into the realms of serious amounts of time, spent on the project.
