Locating people overseas is no different than locating people within your own country. Whether you are attempting to locate someone from your past, or a relative or friend who is traveling abroad, use all the information you have on that person to help in your search. With social networking sites and numerous other online sites promising to help you find lost friends and loved ones, locating people overseas or within your own country is much easier than when such technology did not exist.

Collect all possible information on the person. Contact relatives, friends and travel companions for information. Try to obtain a most recent address or any physical address at all, an email address, full name, birth date and social security number.

Perform a simple online search for the person you are attempting to locate overseas. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites to perform a search for the person using their first and last names. If you know the person’s email address, try performing a search this way.

If possible, view the last time the person logged in to their social media account; this will give you an idea if the profile is active or if it has been abandoned. If your friend request is successful, your search may end here. Unfortunately, some people will be a little harder to locate.

Send a simple message via snail mail to the latest known physical address. Send a simple note letting the person know who you are and that you are trying to contact them.

Speak with the person's former employers or school or perform a search to see if the person is a member of a trade or professional organization. Perhaps they have an address to forward checks to or information regarding whether another company or employer has called asking about the person.

Keep track of any new information you receive in a tracking log. As you speak to friends and relatives of the person you are attempting to locate, being able to look back at your notes and quote other relatives and friends to new relatives and friends may make your search easier.

If the person you are trying to locate is missing, under the age of eighteen or has a medical condition requiring supervision then you should contact the police or the FBI, who can search through legal documents for name changes and passport usage and other documents to locate the person quicker.