The more that you know about a person the easier it is to find out more about them but what if you don't have much information to start with? What if you're trying to find out what happened to a school friend or an old work mate that you lost touch with years ago? There may be no mutual friends to ask, you've no idea where they live or lived and you're not even sure what country they might be in. What do you do then?

The good news is that it's never been easier to find people than it is today. The Internet is making the job of accessing public records a breeze as more and more public information databases are placed online. Searching public databases can often be done for free and if you have a good idea about where to look you stand a good chance of finding what you want.

But how to find out if someone died if you have nothing more than a name to go on? You might not even be sure that you've got the name right. You may have to painstakingly search through obituaries, cemetery records, funeral home records, genealogy databases, social security information and lots more. You might have to do this for many states if you don't know where they lived. You might even have to look for leads in many countries.

Help is available

This is a job that could potentially take you several years to complete but help is at hand. The problem of how to find where someone is buried or how to find any information about an individual is a big problem for many people and help in solving it are now available.

The more information you have to start with the easier it is. If you know someone who has knowledge of the person you are looking for then you can find out if someone is dead by simply asking your mutual friend. Knowing where the person lived can narrow your search down considerably and in the unlikely event that you know the persons social security number then finding them should be easy.

How to save time looking for someone

If you don't know very much about someone then finding out what has happened to them can be laborious and time consuming. It could take you years of looking and you still might not find them. One way of saving time is to hire a private detective to do the searching for you. They are used to finding people and they should be well acquainted with all the public records databases that are available.

Hiring a PI can work out very expensive however and there can never be any guarantee of results. A cheaper option is to make use of an online service that has done all the hard work of finding and integrating all the available records databases together. You still need to have some information to start with but then so would your Private Investigator Consultant.

Find out anything you want about someone

Online undercover detective services aren't limited to how to find out if someone died. You will be amazed at exactly how much you can find out about someone from where they were born to what their credit rating is like. You can even do searches on yourself to find out what information is being kept on you. It's kind of scary.