Finding Someone In Another Country
My name is David Oates, I am the Head Researcher at Relative Connections, you can view my LinkedIn by clicking here. I am also the director of the adoption support agency which is regulated by Ofsted. I am a highly regarded and experienced family tracer and intermediary. I have spoken about finding long lost family on BBC Radio 5 and was part of the featured team on BBC1’s Family Finders TV series
Finding someone in another country doesn’t come without its difficulties and hurdles. There are many privacy laws, just like here in the UK. Obtaining peoples personal and residential contact details these days isn’t as easy and straight forward as it used to be.
But that’s a good thing, we all want to feel safe and if it were the other way around, we’d be grateful that our data is not just readily available and handed out for anyone to see, right?
Most countries are easier to search in when you’re actually based there too. Imagine trying to access records halfway around world? Even if you find a birth, marriage or death record to aid your investigation, getting them delivered is another story. Never mind then actually having to trace and find the person.
There are other things that you can try though. Utilising social media to search for people (this can be helpful if the person you’re trying to find have a unique name) but of course, not everyone uses Facebook which would be the most obvious place to look. But sometimes connection can be found in places like LinkedIn or other employment connected platforms.
Google searches can kick up some results too (although this can take some trawling) look out for old newspaper articles, historical records, obituaries, business registrations, sale of properties or even court appearances. Try different combinations of searching, variations in name spelling, specific areas of the country you need to search in, what they do for a living. Combine all of this with connected relatives too, are they married? Do they have adult children? You have to think outside the box. What other connections can you make to them?
Snippets and links from all these sources can sometimes be found and then added to the timeline of your investigations to build up a clearer picture and of who you are trying to find and map out elements of their life.
DNA platforms can also help make connections to distant relatives, this is still relatively new for some countries but the likes of the UK and the United States systems such as Ancestry DNA, 23 and Me and My Heritage can certainly help connect the dots and remember, these databases are ever growing a matches could pop up at any point so stick with it.
You can sometimes fall lucky, there are people out there who genuinely want to help. We find this a lot when running our online social media campaigns and public appeals (you can help us too by sharing them from our Facebook page) but as you’ll probably know and have already no doubt experienced, in most cases the link to finding the all-important current address for someone always seems to just be out of reach, doesn’t it?
We’ve been there too…
Believe us, it’s much easier to have the right contacts in the right places to accesses the right records, the right way, every time. It’s much simpler and a much cleaner way of doing it, not just legally but in headspace too. If you’re going to do it, you owe to everyone involved to do it right and if our 12 plus years of experience has taught us anything…it’s OK to ask for help to get you to the end goal.
That’s why we’re here…
Here at Relative Connections we have built a global network of researchers to help. We can circumnavigate the obstacles that are thrown at us by doing things the right way. We’ve worked incredibly hard to perfect this. All geared to get you the answers and closure you’re looking for. Not only do we respect the privacy of the individual you’re looking for but we also respect that different countries have different rules and regulations to abide by.
When searching for someone in any instance we ensure that firstly their data is obtained legally and ethically (by us direct or one of our trusted, vetted and verified external researchers) and once we have it we protect it until we have the permission of the person in question to share it so you can rest assured that everything is handled in the right way, with the respect to you and the person you are looking for in mind at every stage.
Then our dedicated in-house intermediary team will support you on your journey through the all-important contact to facilitate and amicable outcome and way forward for all parties to be in direct contact, as and when you are all ready to do so.
Wherever you need to search, in the majority of cases it really is possible. From searching in the obvious countries such as Canada, Australia, USA and South Africa to the more difficult such as Libya and Paraguay (yes both of these searches were successful!) everyone is generally traceable, everyone is out there somewhere. In most cases its just a matter of knowing where to look and how to get a foot in the door and build the trust needed to get the answers you’re looking for.
Don’t give up and if you need any help finding someone in another country then please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’d love to help!
We endeavour to make the whole process as easy as possible; you can relax knowing that it’s all in hand. We will do all the hard work for you and keep you updated at each stage too.
Call us on 0113 282 5900 to find out more or schedule a good time for you below.