Finding Someone Using a Telephone Directory

Of course, it’s not just individual people who can make good use of telephone directories. They are huge, sprawling databases loaded with names, addresses and contact numbers and many businesses will use them to keep their records up to date. But have you ever needed to find someone and not really known where to start?
Manual Searches
Your first port of call may well be a manual search. If you’re using a traditional telephone directory such as phone book (yes, they really do still exist!) then the names will usually be listed alphabetically for convenience and listings will usually show an address (or at least an area) to help you differentiate them from those with similar names. But what happens if the person you are looking for isn’t listed in the phone book? This is rather common today. Most people will make their phone numbers ‘ex-directory’ to limit incoming cold calls and maintain a certain degree of privacy. After all, why would you want someone you didn’t know to have your phone number? Obviously, there are legitimate situations when you may want to get in touch with someone and not know their phone number, and these situations are often perfectly innocent. Perhaps you want to get in touch with an old friend or call somebody with a proposition about something you’ve heard or read. Unfortunately, there’s very little that you can do if a number is purposefully excluded from the listing, but if you do know the person’s number you might be able to use it to find out where they are.
Try reverse phone number lookup
A reverse phone number lookup is the best thing to do failing a manual search for someone. There are reverse number lookups online and all you need to do is enter the number you have for that person, even if it’s an old number. This is a great way of locating those people who have perhaps undergone a name change or remarried and, as a result, are now very difficult to find. A reverse phone number look up will list all of the people associated with that number, and if you’re lucky there may even be an address you can use in order to pay them a visit.
Of course, there are many other uses for telephone directories that many people wouldn’t even realise. Not all directories are public and some give us access to well used features such as Caller ID or being able to find the identity of a threatening or unwarranted caller. But for the most part, a reverse phone number lookup will be the tool of choice for many people to find who they are looking for.