It is often easier to find male classmates than female. Men do not tend to change their names while women often do make a name change at marriage.

Online phone books are a great resource. Start by searching the city of the school or the friend's hometown. If you do not find the friend there, enlarge the area of your search to the entire state. While searching the phone book, look for siblings or parents of the friend to see if there you are able to locate contact information for the friend.

If you know the city where a person has lived within the past twenty years, the phone book may give you the option of a more advanced search for the person by paying a small fee. This search can help you to find the person's current location.

Use a good search engine to search for the friend's name. Try searching for the friend and the school name together. If the friend has an unusual name, you may get lucky and find more information about the friend.

Try searching the local newspaper for the friend's name. Newspapers may list your friend as a survivor in one of the obituaries. If a parent has died, you may also come up with a married name for a child. Unfortunately, at times this search will also let you know that your friend was the diseased. You may also want to search the social security death index for the friend. If the person has died, he or she will be listed there.

If you school has an alumni association, you may be able to get contact information from the association about your friend. Many high school alumni associations will allow you to join free. College alumni associations may charge a nominal fee.

Do not forget the power of networking. If you remain friends with others from the same school, ask around. Someone may have kept contact with the old friend and be able to put you into contact.

Social networking is becoming a powerful tool and may help you to find your friend. In addition, many females will list both married and maiden names so that you can find them in the search. Do not forget to search for friends of friends as you can often locate people in this way.

There are also websites that specialize in bringing people back together. Some of these sites are free to join while others will require a fee.

Many states have open record laws. You can do a court search for the friend. If he or she has had any legal problems, you may find them listed in a court document. Some states also list marriage and divorce records in the public records.

You may not find your friend the first time you search. Do not give up. Keep up the search and you may find the old friend again.