If you're interested in finding family members and not sure where to start, your best bet is to first run a rudimentary Internet search. Any major search engine, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing, will bring up membership pages on social networking sites and articles that mention the name matching the one in your search. If you're not having any luck, come up with a profile about your family members. Write down important information including whether the person is alive, if he ever served in the military or even in prison.
Step 1
Call the last known cell phone number. Now that people can keep their phone numbers even when switching carriers, and only 22 percent of homes rely solely on landlines, according to a 2008 PCMag.com article, you may find your relative on the first try. Ask mutual relatives or acquaintances for a last-known cell number.
Step 2
Use a website like Military Connections for anyone who has ever been in the service. This website has a database of more than 450,000 active members, veterans, and reservists. Contact the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, known as NCHV, at 800-838-4357 if your family member served in the Korean War, Vietnam War or other overseas war assignments. On any given night, according to NCHV, about 107,000 veterans are homeless.
Step 3
Use the Federal Bureau of Prisons, known as the BOP, to search for a family member who has been incarcerated. You need to know the person's first name and last name, as it appears on his birth certificate. It's also helpful to know his age. You will find out where your family member is incarcerated, or from which prison he was released, which will tell you what state he was living in at the time of his crime.
Consider using the BOP website to look for family members that have served in the military. According to the NCHV, an estimated 140,000 veterans were held in state and federal prisons in 2004.
Step 4
Search through your friends' social networking "Friends" lists. Use this step especially if you are in touch with mutual relatives. Check sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, each of which have millions of subscribers. Don't hesitate to look for older relatives on these sites. In 2009, CNET reported that 10 percent of Twitter users were between the ages of 55 and 65.
