GypsieFamily Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Today a journalist rang me. Someone famous had lived on my parents property when I was a child. He worked out my name, then married name, then my phone number. Luckily dh answered the phone so I didn't have to talk to him. I am concerned that from an address where I lived as a child that my maiden and married name, then phone number could be ascertained! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommaduck Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) In this day and age, you would have to try hard to hide. We intentionally had ourselves "unlisted" and even checked whitepages.com every few months to make sure we did not show up. Lo and behold, we received an unwelcomed Christmas card from someone we had intentionally not given our address to. They said they found it online. Yep, sure enough, whitepages.com. I had to go ask for it to be deleted. I've been able to find where my dad has shacked up with his girlfriend (he has nothing in his name other than his truck) by online tax information. Marriage records in some counties are pubic AND online now. I can look someone up by name and find who they married and when. Edited January 8, 2011 by mommaduck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pqr Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Today a journalist rang me. Someone famous had lived on my parents property when I was a child. He worked out my name, then married name, then my phone number. Luckily dh answered the phone so I didn't have to talk to him. I am concerned that from an address where I lived as a child that my maiden and married name, then phone number could be ascertained! People can do far more than that, school records, some tax returns, what you paid for your house...much much more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justamouse Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 All they had to do was to go into the hall of records and follow the family names. Every property's title is on record, with family names. It's not so hard from there to track people down. The prices you paid, the taxes, it's nothing. I have my house's history and all of the families that lived here back to William Penn's land grant. All the families are still here in the county and all I would have to do is open up the phone book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margo out of lurking Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 And there are a variety of websites where you can find maiden-to-married names with minimal guesswork. (My preferred site is veromi.net.) If the name is common, I plug the "possible relatives" names into FB and then look at those people's friends' lists. Online tax records. Google street view. The big challenge is often how to hide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trish Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Supposedly Spokeo.com is giving out a lot of info on people, and it's cheap to subscribe to the more advanced info. I don't know if it's possible to have your info removed, but it isn't a comforting thought that so much is out there. http://www.spokeo.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GypsieFamily Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 I was just shocked that with only an address from 20 years ago, that by using my parent name I could be tracked down. I have never intentionally hidden, it was just a shock at how easy it was. A bit of an eye opener! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annandatje Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 If anyone googles my husband's name, the first hit is his consulting business phone number along with a map to our home office. Even if you have whitepages.com and similar sites remove your information, it can reappear when their databases are periodically updated. Some of these sites provide a list of possible relatives. All my young adult children, siblings, and some sibling-in-laws are shown. You can visit property assessor site for our county to learn history of sales and permits pulled for an address; it also lists details like number of bedrooms and bathrooms and square feet. Many court records are online and are public records. Want to know if someone has declared bankruptcy? Call the federal court in their district for copies of records at 50 cents per page. All this and much more can be found free in online searches. A few hundred dollars to a private investigator will yield much more. People often forget that they can be traced through small things like county pet licenses. If you have a professional license issued by your state, anyone can locate your name and business address. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Mungo Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 There was a tv show on recently about how to hide and go off the grid (legally), but it was pretty extreme. It also included an eventual name change, which I thought was stupid since that would be public record. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annandatje Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) .. Edited January 8, 2011 by annandatje Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LidiyaDawn Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 I was just shocked that with only an address from 20 years ago, that by using my parent name I could be tracked down. I have never intentionally hidden, it was just a shock at how easy it was. A bit of an eye opener! You're also talking about a journalist here ~ by the very nature of their jobs, they're professional snoops. ;) (and I don't say that unkindly - a very good friend of mine works in that field) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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