I don’t know whether others do it, but I often, in moments of idleness, google on names of people I used to hang out with, go to school with, date, and the like.
But, it’s a real art to actually get the right person and know you’ve got him or her.
For example, one man who was a classmate of mine in 6th through 9th grade in Marblehead has a very common name. I won’t give his first name, but his last name is “Smith”. Oh boy, are there lots of XXXXX Smiths hanging around. Even XXXX Smiths occurring with the words “Marblehead, Massachusetts”. No one I’ve asked in Marblehead knows what happened to him. We weren’t bosom buddies, but I’ve always wondered what happened to him.
I have discovered that another classmate of that same time is now a teacher at a Christian Science school somewhere in the Midwest. Very easy to find him, as he has a very out-of-the-ordinary name.
Our sixth grade teacher (see him here on the left) became some sort of school bigwig in another town in Massachusetts.
Another person in that picture gained a doctorate in horticulture and is one of the world’s leading experts on rhododendrons; he’s a professor at a university in Ohio.
Several people have visited my Classmates profile–I “cheated” a bit and put myself down for Marblehead High School even though I ended up in St. John’s Prep, where I graduated in 1970. But these people are usually not the people I am most interested in tracking down.
My former Singaporean boyfriend has dropped off the face of the earth. This is probably OK, but I find it hard to believe that he’s just disappeared. Our friend V.V. who was here last week, knew him at the same time we were going out together, but hasn’t heard from him in years. No one else I know in Singapore knows where he ended up either. Unfortunately, he shares a name with a very prolific professor in the United States and it’s hard to separate the dross from the actual information.
It’s quite hard to find women as they have this habit of getting married and changing their names. One woman I went to primary school with ended up as the leader of a children’s choral group in New England but unless you know her married name it’s rather difficult to find references to her.
What’s the point? I realise that people often are not findable for various reasons. I love that “Bingo!” moment when I do a search on someone and actually find them.
Does anyone else do this? I know that everyone Googles themselves, but what about other people? Do you often succeed? Any funny or interesting stories about it?
EDIT: Looking up the name of someone with whom I went to Columbia, I came up with this reference.
He has apparently done quite well. I remember Tom fondly for introducing me
to Chinese food and being a friend. Sad that we ended up not keeping in touch.
I’ve Googled many people, even prospective dates/bf’s just to see what’s out there about them. But I typically have had much more success with childhood and college friends since I know a lot more details. I’ve tried the classmates site and while it was the best method of locating people, they wanted money to get actual contact information. And just recently I got an e-mail from someone pointing me in the direction of a myspace profile of someone that I mentioned I was looking for in a blog entry ages ago.
I’m not much for class reunions, so I do enjoy looking people up virtually and sending a nice note to try and catch up. Even more interesting is how shocking of a turn peoples’ lives can take from the person you knew.
Hm. Sending notes can backfire. I find that of those to whom I’ve sent a note, only about 1/2 actually reply.
And, school and college are so far behind me now (33 years ago last month I was graduating from University) that details often slip my mind. I do look at my high school yearbook occasionally and refresh my memory.
I think some of the difficulty in finding people of my acquailtance back then is that many of us do not have much of a web presence. I would be shocked if many teenagers today did not have a web presence.
About 6 of my high school classmates have joince the celestial choirs — that is, 6 that the school knows of. It could be many more.
I’ll often Google a date. Once I hit the jackpot bigtime, and it was very hard to act as though I were hearing everything she told me about for the first time.
When I started applying for jobs here in the UK, one of the factors in deciding to go professionally with the short form of my first name (which is the one I prefer anyway) was that what came up on Googling it was more representative of me than for the long form.
My last name is rare, but I share my long & short form with my stepmother and brother, respectively.
My best mate at school has a very common last name, and her first name isn’t rare either. My former beloved (unusual first name, pretty frequent last name) also fell off the internets, which is slightly worrying, though there’s now a relatively recent Amazon wish list that might well be hers. Yep, I do Google her once in a while. I’ve also Googled several of my work colleagues / bosses etc. Surprisingly few have any substantial Google presence. I’m not interested in digging in these cases, so I’ll ignore small hints: more about the recurrent themes.