People Search Services

Our stake has recommended that we use Intelius search service to find lost souls. I have been able to send records out to other wards frequently using this, but I have done some checking and found that the last address listed is NOT always the address where they are currently residing. I did this by putting in the names of ward members that I knew where they lived and Intelius gave me other addresses, with the current address far down the list. I am concerned that I have been sending out records to the wrong wards. Do any of you use Intelius or do you have a service you use that your feel is reliable?

zaneclark wrote:I did this by putting in the names of ward members that I knew where they lived and Intelius gave me other addresses, with the current address far down the list.

Does it give any kind of clue that would help you pick the right address?

I'd image that the data comes from various public documents and tends to weigh the answers based on how many times the same address appears, rather than by how recent the document is.

I tried using some of the "people finder" web sites to find "new" addresses for members a few years ago, and stopped for the same reason, they're unreliable for identifying a person's CURRENT address.

zaneclark wrote:Our stake has recommended that we use Intelius search service to find lost souls.

You may also want to report your findings back to the stake and see what they say.

While I know some members her use such services, I've never seen anything written that the ward or stake needs to go to that level. I'd think doing the basics and polling the membership is sufficient.

My stake presidency recommended we use familytreenow.com, but I quickly found it to be unreliable. And even though I subscribe to beenverified.com, I don't trust it completely. Per the Law of Witnesses, I cross-reference my findings with social media, property records, and anything else I can think of. Using "Return Service Requested" on an envelope is the final confirming witness.

I’ve subscribed to BeenVerified for a couple years now. I started paying $22.86 per month, and then switched to $58.98 per six months. I think the service is fairly good, and the following review gives it good ratings.

https://www.toptenreviews.com/services/ ... -services/

I think I will switch to Instant Checkmate. It is the most accurate service, but also the most expensive. I think it’s worth a try.

The above review concludes:

Our choice for the best overall service is US Search. It has the best combination of price and report quality. We liked the easy-to-read reports that contained accurate information about our subject’s addresses, relatives and criminal history. You can get a single basic report for $2.45 or a monthly subscription of $19.95, both among the lowest costs we saw during our testing.
Best Overall: US Search has low costs for single reports as well as reports that include work history and social media accounts.
Best Value: PeopleFinders has some of the lowest prices, especially if you only need basic reports.
Best Data Visualization: Intelius has the best presentation of data, making it easy to see how the person you’re looking for is linked to addresses, employers and relatives.

Not sure why you'd have to pay for this service when sites like Fast People Search are out there. It will search for individuals by name, address, or phone number and give you as complete details as they have without getting into the criminal background stuff. That includes possible aliases, age, current address, previous addresses, current phone numbers (including wireless numbers), email address(es), possible relatives, and so on.

If you search by address, or click on an address, it will provide you with the current resident and all previous residents for that address that it has records for.

If you search by phone number, you'll see a list of all current and previous owners of that number. Granted, not all phone numbers are on file, but it's truly scary what information it DOES have.

I'm not sure why you'd pay for a service when I've seen nothing that indicates you should use a service in the attempt to locate someone. I've always understand the steps are to use the ward knowledge and local "feet on the ground" resources. The type of things CHQ doesn't have access to.

I use a combination of several sites (FB, Fast People Search, etc). I agree that if the church wanted wards and stakes to pay for search services, they would instruct us to do so. Facebook can be useful to determine if a less active single adult has married, and sometimes what city they have moved to which helps narrow down the options (if they haven't hidden their information).

Fast People Search doesn't always have the latest (i.e. current) address so bear that in mind. I consider a couple hours checking free services my due diligence and if nothing comes up after that, then so be it.

We often ask our full time missionaries to do the boots-on-ground things at the prior address - it gives them an opportunity to speak with nonmembers without tracting.

Just wanted to revisit this. A ward in our neighboring stake is using "Truth Finder", our stake was going to buy a membership for clerks to use, but our stake clerk wanted to make sure that SLC and the Truth Finder company were ok with it, here's what he came back with ...

"Ok. Took me awhile to look into all of this. The church is ok with the stake using it, but TruthFinder is NOT ok with it. They tell me their licensing is strictly for personal use only. It can't be used by any organization, for-profit or not-for-profit, for any reason. Looks like (other ward) is using it illegally if they are using it to clean up member records, based on what I was told by the company. --Bob


So... if he's going to look into this for each one, will any of them pass his test? I see no harm in it, it's better than just sending off the records to SLC lost and found, but whatever.

I'm sure if there is a good subscription service out there, the church is already using it for the service missionaries working on the "address unknown" file. I have had mixed success using several different free services but if one makes you register your email to get the results, only use one you don't mind getting spammed.

My recommendation is give each of the items on the list (that pops up when you indicate you don't have a forwarding address) a good college try and then send the records to address unknown. This is a ward council responsibility so clerks should be enlisting assistance for some of the items from the ward or full time missionaries, ministering elders and ministering sisters, and other organization presidencies.

jasonpbyu wrote:it's better than just sending off the records to SLC lost and found,

I keep seeing this belief over and over again. I do not think that's accurate. And it's certainly not an excuse to violate the Terms of Service.

Yes, there are a number of things the ward should be doing - making use of the Ward Council, asking known friends and family in the ward, etc, But there's nothing that calls for units to use budget funds for any kind of subscription service. If that was the church's desire, they'd have negotiated a bulk service contract and made a way for units to use it.