It comes as a shock to most people – and certainly did to me – when first confronted with the problem of how to find a missing person to realise that there’s rarely a quick result in missing people searches. Finding people, be they lost friends, relatives or even those owing you money takes time but there are some techniques you can employ to reduce the time.

Before going further, it’s important to first identify they type of missing person investigation to be carried out as this will determine the techniques, tools, resources and time it will take. There are three categories of missing person search I’ll cover here, the time taken for investigation being different for each.

Searching for a person who has been out of contact for at least a year
Starting with the easiest and often quickest type of investigation first, namely trying to trace a person who has been out of contact for at least a year. Maybe it’s an old school friend, long lost family member or work colleague but no matter why you’re trying to locate them, the longer it’s been can often and ironically mean you’ll find them faster than the other types of people search I cover here.

The fact of the matter is if it’s been years since you lost contact, they have probably put down roots in their new location and left finger prints you can trace them with. I’m not referring to real fingers so beloved of detectives of course but instead the kind of social foot prints we all leave in our day to day lives: registering with declarations on electoral roles, signing up on social networks, maybe even bad debt reports, and it’s through such foot prints they can be located.

As I’ve discussed before, there are several incredibly useful tools that can now help you find your lost person. As detailed in How do you find a missing person – little known online tricks of investigators there are various techniques to search Facebook, Linkedin and other social networks quickly and often very successfully. It’s a reality however that it can still take days, perhaps weeks.

“You took your time, Holmes.”

Inspector Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes

Finding a person you’ve just lost contact with
Next, and the opposite of the first type of search: finding a missing person who has moved away very recently for legitimate reasons and is not trying to hide. This is more difficult and will take you time, take longer than you might think for the simple reason that it will take a while for them to become established elsewhere and start leaving traces which can be used in the search.

If you’re quick however there are things can produce a fast result and lead to your lost quary in several weeks. I’ve written about techniques that worked well for me in how to find a missing person first steps, these include asking neighbours, friends and family and landlords.

Someone who has recently disappeared on purpose
This is the most difficult sort of investigation. If the person you are looking for has run off on purpose they are unlikely to leave the kind of social finger prints you can use to find them on Facebook etc and this can make them to most difficult to find.

Adding to your difficulties will be that if they’ve only just disappeared they are unlikely to show up on official registers such as electoral roles or sign up with utility supplies that private detectives can trace them through. Equally, they probably won’t apply for credit or loans, again through which professional people searchers and skip tracing services typically track people down.

This all means it’s going to take time to find them, the depressing fact is that it can take months perhaps even a year before someone starts to show on up and can be located. You best bet is to find a private detective who can register a trace and then be alerted once your objective starts to reappear on official registers.

And, finally
Missing persons investigations can take time, patience will become your friend, but can be done yourself and for relatively low cost or even free. How long it takes however will ultimately depend however on the effort you put in. If you want to save yourself some effort, may I suggest you sign up for my free email newsletter in which I reveal tips and advice or invest in one of the excellent books on the subject – my favourite one’s are listed here: the top five books for private investigators.

Picture: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net