Searching for old friends can be a journey filled with nostalgia and anticipation. “Amazingly it’s now more than 50 years since Terry and I last met!” – you could say and get a flood of memories.
Time flies fast and we lose a lot of friendships along the way. Sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we just drift away from each other. It’s part of life, but sometimes, friendship is so strong, you never forget them. But, there’s no harm in trying to reconnect with someone you have lost touch with.
4 Steps to Find Old Friends
Finding a friend from the past is not always easy but you can at least start somewhere. If you remember their name, old address, parents’ name, occupation, or details like that, the search gets a bit easier.
1. Start with Basic Information
Assuming the individual is male, the task is easier, as there is usually no surname change unless by deed poll, so finding a person by name is a great option here. If the surname isn’t too common, like Smith or Brown, it can be narrowed down. Birth records are a good starting point, revealing the mother’s maiden name, which can lead to another family tree if you hit a dead end.
2. Narrow Down the Search
Once you have the full name, town, and city of birth, and any siblings, you have the basic building blocks. For example, if you’re looking for Frederick Watson from Derby, born in 1949, you’d then move on to marriage records. He might have married Kathleen Davies in 1973. The key question is: where are they residing today? For this, you’ll likely need to pay for access to records.
3. Verify the Details
Finding the right Frederick Watson might involve narrowing it down further by checking if he lives with a Kathleen. If Kathleen has passed away, that might not show up, but historical records can confirm if he ever had a wife named Kathleen. The less common the name, the easier the task.
4. Special Considerations for Women
Searching for old friends can be more complicated, especially if the person is female.
Naturally, females usually either change their surname, or hyphenate it, upon marriage If she subsequently divorces, she may continue to use her former married surname or, revert to her maiden name. If she had in the meantime, remarried, then, you have a really difficult task on your hands.
From our experience, quite often when a person encounters similar and mounting obstacles in their search, they simply give up!
That would be a great shame especially if it’s such an important mission for you. However, fortunately, there are a good number of people tracing organizations out there. We would suggest you avoid these same day result sites, as it simply cannot be achieved.
Why Finding Old Friends Has Become My Mission
So here we are in 2019 and It’s X-mas time once more. As I write, my thoughts wander back to my old mate Terence, and where the “old rascal” might he be today?
I first ask myself the question – how come we lost touch?
Especially as we were once so very close. I guess the naivety, inexperience, and impetuousness of youth, does not take into account we inevitably move on.
Things like: change of job, new location, new country, getting married, kids, all of those responsibilities we once never had. Additionally in those days we only had communications via landline phone or a physical address.
This in stark contrast to today’s young generation who enjoy seamless digital communications. Which delivers the ability to never lose contact with any of your friends. Regardless, of wherever they might be residing in the world today. The thought of seeing him again fills me with the determination to make it happen. Especially with the time clock ticking on it becomes more pressing. Perhaps its already too late, we are both age 73 now and many of my friends from that era, are sadly no longer with us.
How to Begin Your Search to Find Old Friends
With the holidays providing some downtime, this might be the perfect opportunity to figure out how to find old friends. But why are so many people reluctant to conduct a historic people search or trace old friends? The complexity and risk of failure can be daunting. Imagine spending hours trawling through records to find a lost friend you last saw 50 years ago—no easy task!
We at friends reconnected specialize in historical traces. However, there are quite a few others out there- so take a good look!
Send us your search request, leave your e-mail or contact phone number. We will contact you as soon as possible.
