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"Once I was Lost: The Search for Loved Ones."

Searching for people in the United States recently became of great personal interest to me when I learned of the existence of a grandfather and three aunts I never knew I had. Before my father and I delved into the project of searching for a father he hadn't seen in 45 years and three sisters he had never laid eyes upon, the only resources I used to find people whom I needed to locate were the phone book, the yellow pages and 411 directory assistance from the telephone operator.

How did USSearch.com deliver six possible names, addresses and phone numbers to our home by mail, with only the name, approximate age and a state the man lived in 20 years ago to guide their search? How do "people-finder" organizations go about their work? How great a factor is adoption in these searches? What role does the police have in theses searches?

In asking myself these questions, I grinned as I thought of those ever-popular tear-jerking, family-reunion television shows Oprah Winfrey does from time to time, and I began to wonder about the countless Americans today in search of long-lost relatives, friends or lovers. They will be the audience of this research.

First, I began by looking up well-known search sites on the Internet. Among those sites, I found many similarities and differences in the methods each search site used to locate people. ReuniteAll.com, for example, is a website designed to allow people to search for old college or high school friends, relatives or those with whom they served in the military. The search can only be completed if a person has registered his email address and chosen password at the site. Chat rooms and message boards are made available to provide the registered users with ways of sending messages to those they seek, in hopes they too will be users of ReuniteAll.com. The web address for this site is http://www.ReuniteAll.com/ . The source of this web site is the company ReuniteAll Inc.

CheckEmOut: Private Investigative Agency is a website that guarantees completion of a search of a person, given as little information as their name, in less than an hour, in most cases. They search property records, motor vehicle records, marriage licenses, drivers licenses, courthouse files, home mortgages, car loans, credit cards, business and corporations records for matching information. The fee is $49.00. The web address is http://www.CheckEmOut.com Sources of Web Site: CheckEmOut: Private Invesitigative Agency

USSearch: The Leading Internet Information Source http://www.ussearch.com US Search is one of the most popular on-line tools used by Americans in search of relatives, friends or acquaintances. US Search.com was founded in 1994 as a publicly traded company for location information about individuals and companies. USSearch.com is a web site that not only searches for people, but can track information for asset verification, people and business locating, fraud prevention and employment screening. Sources of Web Site: US Search

The Seeker: Reuniting the World Http://www.the-seeker.com The Seeker is a website dedicated to the search of friends, family and acquaintances via the Internet or a live radio show. Unlike other popular searches, The Seeker allows a person to discover if they are being sought after by others. Web sites such as USSearch.com, on the other hand, claim their searches are confidential. The Seeker is a way for people who are looking for each other to be connected and interact. Source of Web site: American Data Technology Peoplesite:

The Online Search Community http://www.peoplesite.com Peoplesite is a web site similar to ReuniteAll.com, in that it provides people with a place to post messages, pictures, announcements or other informative materials onto a community registry profile. This profile may be viewed by the person being sought, thus possibly initiating contact. Again, we see that the best chances to locate a person depends largely on the amount of information provided. Source of Web site: Peoplesite, Inc.

Academic Universe Lexis-Nexis Sources

Bartholet, E. Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting. Kirkus Reviews. [Online], 329 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

Beaverton, J. (1996, June). Family Ties. Newsweek Magazine. [Online}, 138 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

Caplan, L. and Waldman, S. (1994, March). The Politics of Adoption. Newsweek Magazine. [Online], 1439 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

Garfield, M. (1997, February). Filling in the Blanks. Newsweek Magazine [Online], 176 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

Kieman, V. (1996, August). Net Search Could Reunite Refugees. New Scientist. [Online], 493 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

McCrary, D. (1980, May). Innocent Blood. Business Week. [Online], 1260 words. Available: http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|URL=http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe

Section V: Internet Mini-Essay Allister Brimble and Computer Game Music (Net People and Places)

Allister Brimble credits getting into the business of writing computer game music by "being in the right place at the right time." Brimble's early childhood interests of music and computers came together when Brimble received a Sinclair Spectrum as a birthday present. Brimble used the BEEP command on the spectrum to create a series of tones which began to vaguely resemble tunes. Brimble learned to operate in BASIC by typing in programs from magazines and learning how they work as it went along. Brimble eventually kept up-grading the machines used and experimenting with the music and sent in a selection of tunes to ELITE software on a cassette tape. Although they returned them saying the tunes weren't quite what they were looking for, Brimble fortunately received money in a will to purchase top-of-the-line equipment and sent a new batch of tunes to Mary Brown of 17 BIT SOFTWARE, who released them onto a CD. As Brimble's work became more popular and well-known, and was given opportunities to produce music for games such as Nitro Boost Challenge, Thunderbirds, Full Contact and Alienbreed. Brimble is now one of Europes most successful and prolific video game musician and producer of sound effects. Brimble has worked with game development companies such as Team 17, MicroProse, Acclaim, FTL Incorporated, Digital Integration and Hothouse Creations. Brimble hopes to one day produce music for a motion picture.

NOTES: No printed sources regarding Allister Brimble were found. http://www.legalalienpromotions.co.uk/bios/biobrimble.htm http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/allister_brimble/MyStory.html

Contact me at:crreid@email.unc.edu

Last Updated: June 13, 2001