I am sure that everyone knows someone who has played high school football. It seems that these individuals love to regale almost anyone with tales of their individual and team glory. For example, I have a neighbor who will talk ad nauseum to anyone on how he could have made it to the pros and how he “tore it up” in high school. Though he means well, most of the time he ends up boring people as his tales begin to drone on and start sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher after a few minutes.

Let’s face it, like my neighbor, many ex-high school football players are dying to share their stories and relive the “glory days.” Sadly, if you didn’t play football in high school, you probably find most of these stories quite difficult to listen to. However, to those who played football in high school, these stories produce a great sense of pride and accomplishment. To these athletes, the idea of letting these stories become forgotten is truly a shame. Thus, a common dilemma presents itself, how can ex-football players still be able to relive their sporting pasts without annoying wives, girlfriends, neighbors and non-athletes everywhere? The answer is online people searches.

As previously stated, the reliving of high school football memories does serve a purpose. However, as with the case of any bonding ritual, the sharing of high school football tales needs to take place in an appropriate context. For example, the sharing of photos of grandchildren will be a lot more interesting and relatable to others at bridge club than at a tail gate party. Thus, there is a time and a place for these activities and this is where online people searches come in.

At this point in the article you may be wondering how the subjects of high school football, online people searches and gift giving relate. (Personally, I am impressed that you made it this far in the article.) The connection between the three actually is quite simple and can be broke down thusly:

1. This holiday season, most of us will have a former high school football player on our gift list.

2. Instead of going with a traditional gift like a new putter or power tool, some of us are seeking a unique gift to give to the important men in our lives.

3. Online people searches can help anyone give the perfect gift to those who still miss the smell of the grass on their high school football field: Reuniting with former teammates.

Using an online people search web site like peoplefinders.com, it is actually pretty easy to locate former high school football teammates. In fact, most teammates can be found simply by entering their first and last names into a search box on a people search web site. Once one enters a name, he or she can then narrow down the results to locate the teammate by using old information such as where the teammate used to live, where he grew up or even by using his old phone number.

Once a teammate or teammates have been located, it really is up to the gift giver to decide what to do next. You can have a teammate give another teammate a phone call to catch up, schedule a trip to visit a former teammate, or even fly a former teammate out for the holidays. Whatever the choice is, reconnecting an athlete with those who shared such special times will be an unforgettable gift for the football player on your list.

Search engines competition is at the highest level and constantly embedding new technologies into searches. The result? Better information for the consumer, and it’s only the beginning! Search engine technology is so precise (especially Google™) that conducting a doctor search or a people search can deliver googles of information.

Depending on the type and quality of information you’re looking after, several different approaches can be used to perform your search.

A Doctor Search

How can I find a Doctor?

* Go to google.com and type in the full name of a doctor (i.e. Dr. Jerome Garden), the city or state, and a specialty field. These keywords gives you a general idea if the doctor has been involved in communities, written publications, media, and so on.

* Visit your State Medical Board and find out if your medical board is one of the few who offer free doctor reports. Medical boards let you know if your (the) doctor has ever been disciplined in that particular state and give you doctor licensure status.

* Next, check out the abms.org and the ama-assn.org for proper board certification and organizational status.

# Finally, visit the fsmb.org. This organization is the governing board of all (MD) State Medical Boards. I highly recommend you visit “FSMB” if you are looking for doctor disciplinary action information, A report will cost you $9.95 each. Depending on what your doctor’s specialty, its always good if they belong to a medical society, for example, a pediatrician might belong to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Keep in mind, a doctor could belong to many society organizations.

A People Search

How can I find a Person?

Like a doctor search, if you want detailed information, it will cost you. However, here are others ways to conduct a free people search:

* Go to google.com and type in the first and last name (i.e. Hugo Gallegos), city, state, profession, business, and so on.

* Visit reversephonedirectory.com, superpages.com, dexonline.com, anywho.com, switchboard.com, infospace.com, att.com/directory.

* Many other sites exist where you can find information. However, most information comes from the same databases with different companies conducting the actual search.

A Background Check

Can I do Free Background Checks? Yes, you can. The question is will you be successful in finding the information you want?

Bottom line

Most consumers prefer quality information and will pay for it. Therefore, before you pay for information, it’s essential to find out what type of searches the company specializes in. Also, browse the site map on their web site to find the FAQs, testimonials, and contact information. If the company discloses very little information about themselves, start looking elsewhere.

They say a great baseball player has five tools: a great throwing arm, home run power, hits for average, runs well and plays great defense. Similar to a great ball player, a great investigator also needs five tools. Besides the obvious, computer and internet access, the People Search News staff believes the following products are “must have” tools if you want to be successful in your internet people search:

A great internet browser

With great features like tabbed browsing (eliminates the need to open multiple browser windows), custom skins, integrated search and thousands of extensions, Firefox is the browser of choice for the PSN staff.

Some of our favorite Firefox extensions and compatible programs are:

Notefish (A great way to save, organize and share snippets of internet web pages that you find.)

Google Notebook (Similar to Notefish, but you can access your information from anywhere)

Google Spreadsheets (Organize all of your information on a spreadsheet that you can access from anywhere)

A few people here also use the browser Flock. This browser is great for anyone that does a lot of blogging and social networking via the web. With Flock, you can do research and talk to your friends.

Access to an excellent public records database.

The PSN staff firmly believes that you do indeed get what you pay for, which is why we use PeopleFinders.com. Yes, we advertise PeopleFinders.com quite heavily on our site, but only because we use it ourselves. The PSN staff believes that PeopleFinders.com has the most accurate and up-to-date data of any internet people search site at a very fair price. We would not recommend anything to our readers that we would not use ourselves.

A comprehensive background report from PeopleFinders.com will provide you with the information you need to locate your subject. View a sample of the PeopleFinders.com comprehensive background report.

Turn your computer into a phone.

Skype is an ingenious little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. All calls from Skype to landlines and mobiles within the US and Canada are also free till the end of the year. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers. Skype also allows you to remain anonymous when calling potential search leads.

A Web-based photo sharing service

A picture is worth a thousands words and quite possibly a few search leads. Using a Web-based photo sharing service allows you to share and find photos relatively easy and free. Since these sites host the images, you can also save on the size of your e-mail attachments. There are many services like this available on the Web. Most are free and only require that you register. Some of out favorites are.

* Flickr

* Picasa

* Riya (Uses facial recognition software)

A great map with city listings

GoogleMaps offers driving directions and great satellite photos as well as listings of local businesses in case your search involves travel or you would like to research the area in which your subject may be currently living. When you travel to a new city or town, it is always a good idea to get acquainted with the make up of a city such as its neighborhoods, restaurants, main attractions.

There are hundreds of Web sites that promise to help you find an old friend, classmate, lover, relative, etc. for free. However, once you try to use these sites to locate someone, you see that once again, nothing in life is truly “free”.

For the purpose of this guide, let’s use an old roommate that owes you money, a.k.a. “jerk face”, as the person whom you are trying to locate. Let’s also assume that “jerk” would be happy to meet with you to give you the money. Here is how the ideal free people search goes down: The first step in cheaply finding this jerk is to go to a people search web site. Go to the site’s home page and type in your old roommate’s name. Depending on how common his last name is, you will probably get a page anywhere from one to about 100 results.

From these results, you are on your way to locating your jerk. However, not every search will work in the exact same way so you have to learn to take what the results give you. First, look for the city where you used to live with the jerk. If it is listed next to any of the names on the results page, then you know you have a handle on him. If you find it, your search may be over as all you then have to do is call 411 and ask for his number. You then can phone the jerk and arrange a pickup of your cash. Search completed, cost: long distance phone call, gas money to meet with jerk, five minutes of effort.

Your search may not have been so easy, however. Therefore, here is how the semi-ideal free people search goes down: If you couldn’t find your jerk from the city that you used to live with him at, take a look at the list of residences again. Do any relate to your jerk? Possibly, could they be his old hometown or where he may have moved to? If so, then you can narrow down the list of results and proceed from there. Search completed, cost: long distance phone call, gas money to meet with jerk, ten minutes of effort.

Perhaps none of the cities listed next to the names on the results page ring a bell for your jerk. Now it is time for a little tougher search: Another way to locate someone is through the names of possible relatives listed next to the results. Maybe you remembered his sister’s name, or perhaps you know his mom’s name. If you know the names of any of his relatives and you see those names listed next to a name on the results page, then you may have found your jerk. Search completed, cost: long distance phone calls to old friends or people who know your jerk, gas money to meet with jerk, fifteen minutes of effort.

If these three methods do not work, you may have to do a little detective work and play “search engine battle ship.” In this game, you take any information that you have on your subject and place it in a search field on a search engine home page. You then press “submit” and see if anything produces a “hit”. This information can be an old phone number, past address, maiden name, social security number or almost any piece of identifying information you have on your jerk. From there, keep entering the information until you spot your jerk in the results. Search completed, cost: digging through old papers on your desk, long distance phone calls, gas money to meet with jerk, thirty minutes of effort.

Finally, you may have to bite the bullet and pay for your people search. We recommend PeopleFinders.com if you have to pay because they are cheap and accurate. Also, you may want to sign up for a 24-hour membership so you can search for a bunch of people. Search completed, cost: $9.95 and up, long distance phone call, gas money to meet with jerk, one minute of effort.