It is normal for anyone to dig through old photographs from family albums, high school annuals, scrapbooks, and other keepsakes every once in a while. Who does not want a trip down memory lane every now and then, anyway? Reminiscing memories with friends, schoolmates, and even past lovers or enemies is sometimes really good to do. And sure enough, you will begin wondering as you browse through these old photographs what happened to these people who were once part of your life. Wouldn't it be great to catch up with them, exchange stories, see how much they have changed, and see what their life is like today?

Before, locating a long lost friend was almost impossible with just a thick phone book in hand. Today, however, information about practically almost anything can be found on the Internet and long lost friends are not exclusions to this reality. Now that email has replaced the traditional mail as the primary means of communication, a few simple tips may be everything you would need to find the email address of any long lost friend of yours, or even anyone you are interested in locating.

Perhaps the most useful and simplest-to-use resources for finding anyone are the White Pages Directories prevalent online. They basically work like the normal paperback White Pages but with more covered places and states. The online White Pages directories contain information on almost everyone living in the United States. To use them, you just have to enter the complete first name and last name of the person you are looking for and in a matter of seconds, the website will track this person for you. Multiple results will almost certainly show, so you have to review them and look for the one you are trying to find.

If the White Pages directories fail to give you the results you were expecting, you can try other approaches. The following steps are simple enough and should almost certainly track down for you the person you are trying to locate:

1. Write down all the information you know about the person. If possible, include his full name, age, last known residence, maiden name and married name if the person is married, and even names of family members.

2. Launch your favorite search engine and type in the search field the full name of the person enclosed in double quotation marks. If you happen to get results fewer than a hundred, go through them all. However, if the number of results is higher than that, just go through the first 20 pages.

3. If step 2 did not work for you, search on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn. You have to be a member to be able to use these sites to find the email address of friends, though. Nonetheless, registration is free and utterly simple. Once you are a member, use the “search friend” functionalities they implement that will require you to enter the person's first and last name, and other details if you know any.

4. Finally, if the aforementioned approaches still would not work, register with Classmates. This site requires a payment for the subscription but it is a foolproof way to find the email address of anyone that has one. This is your last resort of course. Try first the free methods. Why pay when you do not have to?