I'm helping to organize our high school reunion (40 years!)

[dalaigh lllama]

and of course, some of the folks have disappeared into the ether.
Do any of you recommend any good sites for finding people? (preferably free).

[WolverineDG]

1. How far away is your reunion?

My class has had an email list & Yahoo group going for about 5 or 6 years now. Started off on Classmates, but when they started charging, one member grabbed every email he could find off of it & formed an email list, which morphed into a Yahoo Group (mainly because our "Class President for Life"--CPFL--had loads of time on her hands :) ). Emails went out to those who signed up for Classmates, asking people to either provide emails of other class members who weren't on the list or to at least forward the email & ask them to join up. Out of a class of 1000, our group is just under 500 today.

We're also on Facebook & have found loads more classmates that way (& sometimes, they find us). Because of this, we've been able to spend the past 2 years planning & fund raising for our 30th, which paid off grandly when we were able to pay the deposit on one of the best places in town & those planning their 50th couldn't (they were just starting & called our CPFL to let her know they didn't have the money for a deposit yet).

BTW, our group page has a "Milk Carton" for those people we haven't found yet.

Good luck!

dg

[dalaigh lllama]

4. There's about one third of our class on FB

and we have started a class reunion group there. There were only 96 in our class. Of those, 6 are deceased, and there's another 10-15 we can't find. I love the milk carton idea. How did you set that up?

[WolverineDG]

10. It is one of the pages in the Yahoo group

Just a list of those that still haven't contacted the CPFL & a request for anyone who knows anything about them to pass it along to her. For example, I was able to "locate" about 10 of my class just by asking my younger brother (who still hung out with 2 or 3 of them) to have them contact the group. Those 2 or 3 contacted the rest once they joined the group.

dg

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Have you tried facebook? I know, I know. But you could set up

a page for XXX high school class of XXXX reunion. Then you can search.

Also, have you googled their names? I am always amazed at how much is out there!

[WolverineDG]

3. My class has had great success with FB

also check FB for your high school, junior highs, elementaries... many of those have their own groups.

dg

[dalaigh lllama]

5. I found a few of them via google

but the women are impossible to find unless one knows their married name, and too many of the missing guys have names that are way too common.

I did narrow the search down a bit using USA search, but even then some of the names had 5+ pssibilities.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. And of course, I didn't mention, have a list of missing to send to

everyone. And if you know of close friends of the missing during the school years, they may know something.

And yes, it just sucks that women have to (or often feel that they have to) change their names.

Also, some of the missing people may have relatives still living in the area, check the phone book and just call people with the same name? If you have the nerve---it is a little embarrassing. I found my best friend from high school that way since I didn't know who she had married.

[dalaigh lllama]

8. I think circulating the list of missing as soon as possible sounds good

Not sure if I can do the cold calling to same-last-name people, tho. Thanks!

[marzipanni]

6. Classmates, Intelius

With Classmates you have to join but there is a free level. You enter your state, town, and school.
Then it has a place to enter either "attended, or graduated" and two spaces for years. If you only want to see your own class put your graduation year in both year spaces.
The good thing is that they go by maiden names, and quite a few people seem to have joined.
An old friend of mine announced our 40th reunion on Classmates- I think she had to pay a small membership fee so she could list the reunion, but I think you can email people listed by Classmates even if you/they aren't a member.

Intelius people search covers one state, or all, then it will show a list of all people with that name and in most cases their age, city, and state, (the age being the best indicator whether it's the person you're looking for!)
Unless the person has a common name, with that info you can go to white pages online to look up address/phone number.

[dalaigh lllama]

9. Thanks! I'll try both of those!