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Finding Old Buds


M2

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I am looking for an old buddy who I served with a long time ago and who separated from the USAF in the early 90s. I am lucky in that I have an old set of orders that has his SSN on it. I tried Intelius but only got a listing of possible cities. A full report costs $50, and I want to be sure the info is worth getting before shelling out the cash. I did a search on his name and in those cities via WhitePages.com; but the one best lead (same exact name) I got was not the right person.

I was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations. The driving factor behind all of this was my being contacted by a guy who served with my bud's father in Vietnam, and who was with his father when he was killed. He has been trying to contact someone in his family for over 40 years, and hoped I could help.

Cheers! M2

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I'm sure it's the most retarded way to do it, but in tracking guys down for some of my articles, I've done the 411.com. Found a listing in various cities and worked the phone from there.

Lots of strike outs that way, but I usually found who I was looking for. Eventually.

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Guest LocoF16

This site: http://www.zabasearch.com has helped me find the addresses/phone #s of a few folks that I have lost touch with. It kinda sucks though because it'll give you tons of addresses so you might have to do some sifting. It'll even show birth years to help you out. Hopefully his name isn't John Smith.

Try typing your info in there, you'd be surprised how far back it goes...

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I found People Finders.Com to be almost alarmingly accurate, although I have only tried their free searches. If you enter a name and a state where they have had an address, it'll give you all the addresses associated with that person, as well as other names associated with them - wife, kids, parents, grandparents. It shows whether the web site has an address, phone, and/or email address on file and then you can decide to pay for that additional info or not.

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Slight possibility he might have an account on airforce.togetherweserved.com

Actually checked that site, no joy. Still, there are 27602 people registered there so it is a good future resource if more people sign up...

Cheers! M2

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Guest C-21 Pilot

Try the IRS...since you have his SSN

If he files taxes, they will have a PUBLIC RECORD of the city, state that he resides....no address though. I used this in a law class once.

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I am looking for an old buddy who I served with a long time ago and who separated from the USAF in the early 90s. I am lucky in that I have an old set of orders that has his SSN on it. I tried Intelius but only got a listing of possible cities. A full report costs $50, and I want to be sure the info is worth getting before shelling out the cash. I did a search on his name and in those cities via WhitePages.com; but the one best lead (same exact name) I got was not the right person.

You don't need to buy an entire report from Intellius, since you presumably don't want any of the legal/paedophile/finance checks. So, simply buy a cheaper 24 hour pass. This will allow you to see current address and previous addresses (the latter of which is very useful for narrowing down the search since you will presumably have some idea of which units/bases he served at), and will also list relatives and all of their information.

The Intellius address and phone number is listed as 'confirmed' and 'connected' in the full report if it is up-to-date and current, which is also helpful. DoB is also provided.

I was looking for about 30 former USAF/USN guys recently and managed to find about [edit] two thirds of them through Intellius. On occasion I had to resort to phoning some of the relatives listed before I actually found the man himself, but the point is that I got there in the end.

I have PM'd you an example report so you can see what you'd be getting.

Cheers

Steve

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Thanks guys, I ran the Intelius report and got 313 hits (unfortunately, he has a somewhat common name). I will call the IRS later today to see if they will share where he last filed. The guy that contacted me found out that my old bud's father is buried in Canada. He looked there as I recalled that my friend had mentioned moving there one day. He is trying to track down info from the cemetary but seeing as he was buried over 40 years ago, the info will be dated. However, it also may reveal some other family members we are unaware of.

I appreciate everyone's help with this, I will let you know how it works out.

Cheers! M2

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Thanks guys, I ran the Intelius report and got 313 hits (unfortunately, he has a somewhat common name). I will call the IRS later today to see if they will share where he last filed. The guy that contacted me found out that my old bud's father is buried in Canada. He looked there as I recalled that my friend had mentioned moving there one day. He is trying to track down info from the cemetary but seeing as he was buried over 40 years ago, the info will be dated. However, it also may reveal some other family members we are unaware of.

I appreciate everyone's help with this, I will let you know how it works out.

Cheers! M2

M2

Have you tried speaking to the MPC? I am fairly sure they maintain a data base of retirees.

I contacted them a few years ago to find some ODS vets and they sent me a list of addresses, many of which were still valid. I simply provided them with the names, ranks and units they were known to have served in. Some of these guys had also separated in the 1990s, but their contact details had been kept up-to-date (I don't know why).

Good luck!

Cheers

Steve

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Oh, and this sounds really obvious, but have you talked to other squadron buddies from the time, or tried to find them? Incredible as it may seem, I recently finished a project that researched a programme from the late 1970s and 1980s, and I discovered that a lot of the guys in the unit were still in touch over email - I would have said it highly unlikely, but it turned out to be very true. Once I found one of them, the rest eventually filtered through the ether...

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Steve

He separated, and may be living in Canada, so the MPF or AFPC wouldn't have any more info on him.

As for other buds, that normally would be one of the first places I would have checked but honestly none of them would have any more contact with him than I did. However, I was able to track down a few other old buds while looking for info on the one; so once I find this guy, I am going to try and get a few of us reunited again.

Cheers! M2

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  • 11 years later...
  • M2 locked this topic

Sorry, the spammer was from Mumbai and has been deleted and banned.  I also changed his password and blocked his email and IP address.

Since this thread is 11+ years old, I should note that many years ago I not only found my buddy (he lives up in Fargo, ND) and was able to not only connect him with the guy that was with his father when he died, but also with his long-lost brother.

That said, this thread is now officially closed (and locked.

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