Skip Tracing, People Search and Asset Search: Questions Answered
The questions people most often type into a search box before they find us, each answered in a few sentences. Every answer is a short summary of one of our full guides and ends with a link to it, so you can stop at the summary or read the whole method. Questions that no lawful private search can answer are addressed plainly below, with the route that can.
The Short Version
Each answer on this page condenses one of our guides into a few sentences and links to the guide that covers it in full. Two things hold for every search we run: the person must be in the United States, and you must start from a real identifier such as a full name, an address, a date of birth, a phone number or an employer. A username, a photo or a first name on its own is not a starting point any lawful private search can use. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Watch: Skip Tracing FAQ: What You Need, What Can't Be Done, and Is It Legal?
What We Search, and What We Will Not
Read this first if you are unsure whether your question is one we can help with.
A real identifier and a United States subject. A locate is solvable when you hold something that connects to records: a full legal name, a former address, a date of birth, a phone number that was in the person’s name, an employer or a relative. We work United States subjects only. If the person is abroad, the records a search depends on mostly do not exist in a form we can reach, and we would rather say so now than after an invoice.
A handle alone is a different problem, not a harder one. A username, a screen name, or a profile with no real name behind it cannot be turned into an identity by any lawful private route, because the platform holds the link and releases it only to a subpoena or law-enforcement process. If someone using a handle is harassing or threatening you, report it through the platform’s abuse process and to the police, who can compel what no private party can. That is not a brush-off: it is the route with the power to get an answer, and starting there is faster.
A lawful purpose, checked before anything is searched. Serving papers, enforcing a judgment, settling an estate and reconnecting with family are the ordinary reasons. We do not take work aimed at stalking or harassment, or at contact that would violate a protective order, and a request whose stated reason is that someone does not want to be found gets more scrutiny, not less. We are not a consumer reporting agency, and a locate is not a consumer report. In collection matters we find the debtor and their assets; we do not collect the judgment. If you hold a real identifier and a lawful reason, tell us what you are starting from and we will say whether it is solvable before any work begins.
Jump to a Topic
Finding a Person
Classmates, relatives, old friends and the people who are hardest to trace.
How do I find a classmate from high school?
Start with the school and the graduating year. Together they open the yearbook, which fixes the name as printed, and the class network of reunion organizers, class groups and alumni sites. If marriage changed a classmate’s surname, the yearbook name is the thread to follow. The full method: finding a high school classmate.
Can you find someone with just their full name?
A full name alone points at everyone who shares it: a pool, not an answer. Add one identifier (an approximate age, a city or state, a middle initial or a known relative) and the pool narrows toward one person. A first name by itself is not enough for any lawful search. More in finding someone with just a name.
How do I find someone who changed their name after marriage?
The person did not vanish; the surname moved. The marriage record lists maiden and married names side by side, so it is the bridge. Find the marriage from the maiden name, read the new surname, then search forward under it, repeating for any later divorce or remarriage. Our guide to finding someone after a marriage name change walks through it.
How do I find a long-lost relative?
Write down what only family knows: full legal name, maiden or former names, approximate age, last known location and the relatives who connect you. Build outward with vital records and obituaries that name survivors, keeping DNA for when you have no name. Genealogy sites trace ancestors, not living people. See finding a long-lost family member.
How do I find a childhood friend from elementary school?
Anchor on the old block and the grade school, not a child’s first name: note the street, school, teacher and years, then trace the family who lived there forward. Directories and deeds named only the adults. Local newspapers printed children’s full names, and their microfilm is searched by date. Read how to find a childhood friend.
How do I find a half-sibling?
Identify the parent you share and build out from that parent’s life and records. A courthouse often holds the answer without a DNA test: a divorce petition from an earlier marriage names its children, and probate can name heirs. An anonymous DNA match becomes a locate worked from a name. Reaching out stays your choice. See finding a half-sibling.
How do I find an estranged family member?
A lawful locate works from the relative’s full legal name, any prior name, approximate age and last known address. Estrangement adds a step: if they cut off the whole family, fled an abusive situation or are protected by a restraining order, staying back may be right, and a refusal or silence is an answer. Read finding an estranged family member.
How can I find a former elementary school teacher?
It is two jobs. First recover the teacher’s full, correctly spelled name from yearbooks, class photos, school records and classmates, because "Mrs. K" finds no one. Then turn that name into a current person, watching for a maiden-to-married change. A state teacher-credential lookup can confirm the legal name. Details in finding an elementary school teacher.
How do I find someone in the military?
First settle whether the person is a veteran or on active duty. Veterans leave ordinary public records, and the VA will forward a letter without releasing an address. Active duty has no public locator; the Defense Manpower Data Center only confirms status for legal-compliance purposes. We never provide a duty station. The two routes: finding someone in the military.
How do I find someone who is homeless?
Address lookups fail because an unhoused person stops generating leases, utility bills and often a phone in their name. The trail shifts to people and services: shelters, day centers, outreach teams, benefit programs, jails, hospitals and relatives who still hear from them. A realistic result is a dependable point of contact. See finding someone who is homeless.
How do I locate a person, and what do I need to start?
A locate runs on real identifiers: a full legal name, a former address, a date of birth, an employer or a relative. No lawful private route turns a username alone into an identity. If a handle is threatening you, the platform’s abuse process and the police can compel what no private party can. Start at how to locate a person.
Addresses, Phones and Employers
Current and past addresses, P.O. boxes, phone lines and workplaces.
What is a previous address, and how do I find someone’s address history?
A previous, prior or former address is anywhere a person lived before the current one; forms want the street and the dates. Your own is recoverable from your credit report, past tax filings and old mail. Someone else’s is rebuilt as a dated chain from deeds, voter rolls and court filings, checked against relatives. See finding someone’s previous addresses.
How do I find someone’s new address if they left no forwarding address?
Not through the post office. USPS forwarding lasts about 12 months for a permanent move, and the new address is not disclosed to the public. A person who relocates leaves a fresh trail in public records unrelated to the postal service, and the current address is rebuilt from that history. Read finding someone who moved without a forwarding address.
How do I find someone’s current address?
Build it from several sources and confirm it, rather than trusting one lookup. Start from your strongest anchor: a full name with a date of birth or prior city, an old address, or a phone number. The newest address should agree across independent sources and fit the person’s relatives and history. See finding someone’s current address.
Can I find out who owns a P.O. box?
Only through a few lawful channels; the Postal Service keeps no public boxholder directory. It releases a personal boxholder’s name and address to someone serving legal process, to a government agency certifying an official need in writing, or under a subpoena or court order. Private mailboxes at pack-and-ship stores follow different rules. See who is behind a P.O. box.
How can I tell whether a phone number is still active without calling it?
A carrier line-status (HLR) check reads network routing records and reports whether a number is connected, disconnected or awaiting reassignment, without ringing the handset. Ringing or a nameless voicemail proves nothing. A live line is half the answer: the FCC counts roughly thirty-five million US numbers reassigned yearly. More in checking whether a phone number is still active.
How do I find out where someone works?
The open route depends on why you ask. Judgment creditors can make the debtor name an employer under oath, custodial parents have the child-support locate channel, and others rely on public records tied to a lawful reason, such as garnishing wages. We search US subjects from a full name plus one hard identifier. See finding someone’s current employer.
Can you find someone with a Social Security number?
No member of the public can type an SSN into a site and get a name or address; services claiming otherwise are misleading or unlawful. Inside credentialed channels the SSN is the most precise matching identifier, confirming the right person, and using it requires a permissible purpose under federal privacy law. See what an SSN trace can and cannot do.
Public Records and Status Checks
Probation, marriage, hospital and jail questions, and verifying credentials.
How do I find out if someone is on probation?
The sentence ordering probation is part of the public court record, so pull the criminal case in the county of conviction. The live supervision file, meaning officer, conditions and location, is generally not disclosed to the public. Online lookups vary by state, and crime victims have a separate state notification channel. Read finding out if someone is on probation.
How do I find out if someone is married?
Go to the records that document it. Marriage licenses and certificates are filed at county or state level and divorces are recorded in court, so searching where a person has lived usually shows a marriage, a divorce or neither. Follow the name from maiden to married, and confirm the record is the right person’s. See checking whether someone is married.
Can a hospital tell me whether someone is a patient?
Yes, if you ask by name. Under 45 CFR 164.510(a) a hospital may confirm a named patient is there, their location and general condition, unless they opted out of the directory. It will not search by description. Not sure which hospital? Start with a police missing-person report. See finding out if someone is in the hospital.
How do I find someone in jail or prison?
Work out which system holds them; there is no national database. Local arrests appear on the county sheriff’s jail roster, state felony sentences in the state corrections lookup, federal prisoners in the Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator, and immigration detainees in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. Released people need a records search. See finding someone in jail or prison.
How do I verify a professional’s license online?
Go to the source: the state board regulating that occupation, via its free lookup by name or license number. Confirm active status and read the scope, dates and any discipline. A clean record proves only that the credential exists, not that the person in front of you is the licensee. See verifying a professional license online.
How do I check a financial advisor’s disciplinary history?
Run the two free regulator lookups first: FINRA BrokerCheck for brokers and the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site for advisers. Read Form ADV Part 1 for disciplinary events and Part 2 for fees and conflicts. Those files assume the name is genuine; public records add identity, prior businesses, judgments and liens. See a financial advisor background check.
Heirs, Estates and Probate
Missing heirs, confirming a death, unclaimed property and an administrator’s duties.
How do you find missing heirs to an estate?
Start with what the estate holds, such as the decedent’s papers, the will and family accounts, then build outward with vital records, obituaries, census and immigration records, property and probate filings, and current-address research. The hard parts are completeness and proving identity; distributing without a documented search can expose an executor personally. See tracing missing heirs and beneficiaries.
How can I find out if someone has died?
First estimate when the death would have happened. A recent one shows only locally, through the funeral home, newspaper death notices and the county registrar; older deaths reach national indexes such as the Social Security Death Index. Match two sources before treating a death as confirmed. An empty search proves neither death nor life. See finding out if someone died.
How do I find an unclaimed inheritance?
Most of it is unclaimed property: a dead person’s dormant money or assets, held by a state until an heir comes forward. Search the unclaimed-property office of every state where your relative lived or did business, plus federal sources for savings bonds, pensions and failed-bank accounts. Searching and claiming are free. See finding unclaimed inheritance.
What does an estate administrator have to do?
Roughly in order: secure the assets, identify and notify heirs and beneficiaries, inventory and appraise, notify creditors and handle claims, keep estate money separate, pay valid debts and taxes, account, and only then distribute. The state where the estate is administered sets the exact duties. The notice duty carries the personal exposure. See estate administrator duties.
Debtors, Judgments and Assets
Employers, bank accounts, property, LLC owners and inheritances in collection work.
How do I find a debtor’s employer for a wage garnishment?
A garnishment is served on the employer, not the debtor, so the current employer is the fact you need. It comes from the debtor’s answers in post-judgment discovery, employment indicators in an asset search, any business they own or work through, and a steady income pattern. Serving a former job collects nothing. See finding a debtor’s employer for a garnishment.
What does an asset search show?
Assets with a public footprint: county-recorded real property, business entities, titled vehicles and watercraft, aircraft on the FAA registry, UCC financing statements, and the judgments, tax liens and bankruptcies filed against a name. It cannot lawfully reach account numbers, balances, brokerage or retirement holdings; those need a subpoena or post-judgment discovery. The full list: what an asset search shows.
How do I find out who owns a house?
Search two free county offices where the property sits: the assessor, listing the owner of record by address or parcel, and the recorder or register of deeds, holding the deed. Cross-check them, since the assessor’s roll can lag a sale. An LLC or trust on title needs one more step. See finding out if someone owns their home.
How do I find out who owns an LLC?
Begin with the free Secretary of State search where the LLC was formed; it usually shows a registered agent and organizer, not the owners, and the agent is only a service contact. Layer annual reports, linked addresses, related entities, court, UCC and property records. Wyoming, Delaware, New Mexico and Nevada allow anonymous owners. Read finding who owns an LLC.
Who is the real decision-maker behind an LLC-owned property?
A member or manager, not the registered agent. Read the deed and any mortgage for signer names, pull the complete filing history, follow prior agents and organizers to the members, and cross-reference the parcels and entities those names touch. Verify the match against the deed before anyone is contacted. See reaching the decision-maker behind an LLC-owned property.
How do creditors find out that a judgment debtor inherited something?
Usually from the public record, not the debtor. An estate opened where the relative lived names the personal representative and the heirs, and a recorded deed or new address can follow. Timing decides everything, because inherited money moves fast, and reachability depends on the state. We research and document; counsel and the court collect. See when a judgment debtor inherits.
How do I find someone who owes me money and moved?
Work from identifiers that carry forward, not the dead address: full name, date of birth, old phone, employer and prior addresses. A move scatters a person across new leases, utilities, registrations and jobs, which a skip trace follows. Collecting a legitimate debt is a permissible purpose; we do not collect it. Read tracing a debtor who moved.
How do I find a judgment debtor’s bank account?
Where someone banks is not public record. The quickest lead is a check the debtor once wrote you, which shows the bank on its face. The strongest tool is a debtor’s examination, where the debtor testifies under oath and produces statements, backed by subpoenas to banks. Public filings can narrow the field. See finding a judgment debtor’s bank account.
How Skip Tracing Works
What it is, what we need, what it costs and what the person sees.
What is skip tracing?
Skip tracing locates a person who is missing, hard to reach or deliberately hiding by following the records their life generates. The term joins "skip," someone who skipped out, with "tracing." It starts from a name, an old address or a phone number and cross-checks address history and public records toward a verified location. See what skip tracing is.
What information do you need for a skip trace?
The strongest start is a full legal name plus a date of birth or approximate age and a last known address, which together separate your subject from namesakes. Prior addresses, phone numbers, an employer, an email and relatives’ names sharpen it. You do not need everything, and confirmed details beat guessed ones. More in what information a skip trace needs.
How much does skip tracing cost?
Skip tracing with us starts at $129. The price rises only with genuine difficulty: a cold trail, a common name, a multi-state move or an added asset search. The cheapest option is often the most expensive, because a stale address costs a failed service attempt, a wasted trip or a missed deadline. The breakdown: how much skip tracing costs.
Will the person know I searched for them?
Reading a public record notifies nobody; a deed index or court docket has no one to tell. Contact leaves the trace: a letter, a call, a follow request or a filed pleading. A consumer report is the exception, since federal law lets the person ask which businesses obtained one. "Without them knowing" requests get closer scrutiny: searching without them knowing.
How do I find a defendant so I can serve a lawsuit?
You need a current address where the defendant actually is. Confirm identity, research public records toward a home or work address, verify it, and give it to a process server. If diligent efforts fail, that documented search is what most courts want before allowing alternative service. We locate; we do not serve papers. See finding someone to serve a lawsuit.
Legality, Privacy and Safety
Where the legal lines sit, protecting your own address, and a missing person.
Is skip tracing legal?
Yes, when it is done for a permissible purpose using lawfully obtained data. Serving papers, collecting a legitimate debt and reconnecting with family are routine lawful aims. Three federal laws shape the field: the FCRA governs consumer-report data for regulated decisions, the GLBA protects nonpublic financial information, and the DPPA restricts motor-vehicle records. Read whether skip tracing is legal.
How do I remove my home address from the internet?
Work in order: opt out of people-search and data-broker sites, use Google’s "Results about you" tools, then go upstream to WHOIS, voter, property and court records, including any state address-confidentiality program. Afterwards, give out a post-office box or mailbox service. Listings reappear within three to twelve months, so re-check. See removing your home address from the internet.
What should I do first when someone is missing?
If anyone may be in danger, call 911. For an adult out of contact, file a police report; no agency makes you wait a day. Then try their phone and messaging apps, the people and places they saw last, hospitals and jail lookups, logging every call. A competent adult may walk away. More in how to locate a missing person.
An answer here is a summary. When your situation turns on a detail, the linked guide is the one to read.
Have a Name and a Lawful Reason?
Choose the service that fits what you are trying to do. Each one starts from the identifiers you already hold and a purpose the law permits, for a person in the United States.
