Searching for people in UK when address is not known

Jim Hawkins · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

With the online people search sites like 192.com, you have to know what part
of the country the person lives in.
Is there any way of searching the whole of the UK telephone directory ? Or
the whole UK electoral roll ?
When you lose track of people you often have no idea which part of the
country they're in.

Jim Hawkins

Archived from group: uk>people>adoption>searching

hamish · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 2

there are programs such as 'UK info' which enable you to search for a
name. This then gives you a list of people with that name and their
addresses. You can then see who else lives at that address. I found it
very useful. It's a bit daunting if the person you're looking for has a
common name though..

Or you can purchase the electoral register.

Hamish

hamish · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 2

or you could try something like http://www.locatefirst.com/uk/

Robin Harritt · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

hamish wrote:

> there are programs such as 'UK info' which enable you to search for a
> name. This then gives you a list of people with that name and their
> addresses. You can then see who else lives at that address. I found it
> very useful. It's a bit daunting if the person you're looking for has a
> common name though..
>
> Or you can purchase the electoral register.
>
> Hamish
>

Better off sticking to InfoDisk or similar unless you're doing it as a
business, last time I looked in to it the cost of purchasing the raw data from
the UK Electoral Registers was about £15,000 and that before you've put it in
database format. All that and it's not even complete since the opt out of the
public version option came in to force.

Of course if you are in the business of helping adopted people to find their
birth relatives in England & Wales after 30/12/05 then you need to be very
careful that you don't do anything that would require you to be registered as
an Intermediary / Adoption Support Agency. Meeting the requirements to register
as such an agency could also be a bit expensive, always assuming you or
someone in your firm has the necessary professional qualifications. Anyone
offering any of the services proscribed in the Adoption and Children Act 2002
as functions of an Adoption Support Agency without being registered to do so
would have to expect to be added to the already overcrowded prison population
of the UK, for a year or so. And those regulations apply even if you are not
doing it as business for profit

I make no comment at this point on the right or wrongs of the new regulations.
Everyone had the chance have a say on numerous occasions during the many rounds
of consultation. Far too few of those affected could be asked to bother to make
their views known hence we have the laws we have. At least there will be a
statutory professional service available for anyone searching for a relative as
a result of adoption and at reasonable fee. Relatives seeking someone given up
for adoption will be able to ask an adoption support agency that undertakes
intermediary services to search for the adoptee concerned and ascertain his/her
wishes with regard to contact and exchange of information. Adoptees themselves
still have a choice of doing it them selves.

Robin Harritt

http://harritt.net