Gathering people for a reunion

It's reunion time! Planning committees are organized, park shelters rented, and dinners are prepared. The key a successful reunion is the people who should attend. Where have they all gone?

The task of tracking people you have not seen for 5 or 25 years can be daunting. With the help of the Internet, it can be surmountable.

With bits and pieces of information such as a name, a phone number, the person's Internet access provider, an e-mail address, or the state where the person may live, you can find a classmate's or relative's address.

Start your search with a name search. You can search for street name and phone number, e-mail addresses, or for a home page.

If you search for a street address, you will most likely be searching a phone directory. If the individual does not have the phone listed in his or her name, it may not appear. You must usually have a last name to begin the search.

If you search for an e-mail address, be aware that the address could be outdated.

It is best to try several search engines to be sure to get the latest information. For example, when I searched on my name in the various databases, I got old e-mail addresses along with current e-mail addresses and an out-dated phone number. In some cases, no street address was found. Only one database got everything about me right.

Switchboard , Four11 , Yahoo People Finder , and Bigfoot lists street and e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

Switchboard and Four11 allows people to modify their listings and also searches for businesses.

Yahoo offers "smart name feature" which searches for nicknames of proper names. IE: Bill for William. With Bigfoot you can even print out a map pinpointing the person's street address.

If you are just looking for an e-mail address, Internet Address Finder and Infoseek Address Finder may be the tools for you. You can search by name or by e-mail address. They both allow people to update their listings.

E-Mail finder is a fee-based service for people who have changed their e-mail address and want others to know their new one. The search for an address is free so you may want to search here as well.

School Reunions

There are all kinds of reunions such as: family, military, clubs and organizations. Databases exist for just about every group that plans to meet on a regular basis. Here, I am focusing on school reunions.

Refine your search by utilizing a search service which helps you to find high school alumni and friends from around the world. ClassMates Online and Schoolmates are two good places to start.

See if your reunion information is already listed, or list your reunion yourself, through sites dedicated to reunion news. These sites allow reunion committees and planners to announce their event to a global audience and let you search for information. Reunion Trac , Reunion Net , Reunion Hall , and High School Reunion Resource Center are good sites to try.

Those who went to school in West Virginia can take the easy road. Go to our West Virginia page and click on education. There you will find links to schools in West Virginia. If your school is having a reunion and it is on the web, the site should have information on it. For college reunions, find a link to your college or university on our Reference page .

Finally, you can use global search engines such as Yahoo and Lycos to search for your school by name.

Thanks and Footnotes

Thanks to Sam Urso and to our web site visitors for suggesting this topic. In the past few months, we have received letters from as far away as Japan looking for reunion information from our local high schools. Hope this helps!

If you missed it. News coverage and photos from President Clinton's visit can be seen on our site at http://cpubco.com/clinton.htm.

As you voyage down the cyber-path, you are encouraged to send me your ideas for topics you

would like to see discussed and to share your favorite links. Send correspondence to me at: e-mail: Webmaster@cpubco.com, via post: Web Voyager, Ellen H. Fernandez, PO Box 2000, Clarksburg, WV 26302, or through our web site. Phone: 626-1466.

EDITOR'S NOTE Ellen Highland Fernandez is the Webmaster for Clarksburg Publishing Company's site and her column appears on the first and third Sundays every month in the Sunday Exponent-Telegram

Clarksburg Publishing Company, P.O. Box 2000, Clarksburg, WV 26302 USA
Copyright © Clarksburg Publishing Company 1997