How to Find a Person in Norfolk, England
By AndreasVassiliades
There are a few different ways to find a person in Norfolk, England. All require that you know some details about the individual you are looking for. At the very least you must know the name of the person you hope to find. The more you know, the greater are your chances of finding them. There is no definitive directory that includes information on all the residents of Norfolk.
Check out the British Telecom phone directory, at thephonebook.bt.com. Online search of the directory requires nothing more than a surname and a location. The results are instant, including an address and telephone number for every name. Not all people with a telephone line are included in the directory, however.
Search the online version of the United Kingdom Census. The UK Census database contains a wide variety of primary information about individuals. Go to the website, at freecen.org.uk, and search the name of the person you are looking for. The basic search option is clearly visible on the main page of the website. Find more advanced search options on the second search page. You can specify various details such as birthplace, marital status, civil parish, occupation, language and street if you know them. The results are displayed instantly. Every household in the UK is legally required to complete the national census, however, as it is only collected every ten years, the information may not be up-to-date.
Advertise in a local Norfolk newspaper. You can find a list of publications produced by the Norfolk Council Authority at norfolk.gov.uk. Alternatively, you can place an advertisement in the two big regional newspapers lynnnews.co.uk and edp24.co.uk. Both newspapers allow you to publish in their print versions and in the classifieds sections on their website. At lynnews.co.uk you can find the appropriate section in the "Community" portion, accessed from the main page. At edp24.co.uk the section is titled "Classifieds," and is also found on the main page. Alternatively you can contact both newspapers by phone. Their telephone numbers can be found on their websites, in the "Contact Us" link.
Explain in your classified listing the reason you are looking for this person and that, if appropriate, you would like any family or associates of the person to contact you to help you in your search. Include all the details you know that may be suitable for publication. Someone reading the classified may not recognize the name, but your description may ring a bell. Include your own contact details in the ad, of course. Provide a variety of contact methods, to accommodate those who may wish to contact you only by telephone or e-mail.
Follow all the leads you generate from browsing the telephone directory, UK census and responses to ads in the local Norfolk newspapers. If this turns out to be fruitless, then consider visiting Norfolk and searching in person.
More than 800,000 souls live in Norfolk, so don't count on the first local you find to know about the person you're searching for! You can place notes in all of the most important social and communal areas, like pubs, cinemas, shopping centers, local bulletin e-boards, etc. You can find the addresses of such places at norfolk.gov.uk/Leisure_and_culture.
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Tips
- European Union legislation, with its guarantees of the right of free movement of persons, enables many migrant workers to have no fixed abode. Even those who have a fixed abode are not always formally required to register in a database as a resident. So, if a person is in the habit of regularly moving around Europe, it may be very difficult to locate them---even if you know they recently resided in Norfolk.