Brat Finding

Hints On How To Find That Missing Mate

Hi, this is Vic Wise the Recruiting Sergeant. Prior to the Revolution I was the Bratfinder General but that’s democracy for you!

 

Which brings me to the first useful tool for finding AWOL Brats, The British Electoral Roll, which is published online by a company called 192.com whose web site can be found at http://www.192.com.   This is a pay/view site but much useful information can be gleaned for free. Enter your man’s name and place of residence, if known, in the Search box. Use of a second initial will reduce the number of hits but if you have no success then re-search with just the first name or initial.

 

You will then see a page with all the possible results in the centre and a column on the left where you can filter results by age and location. Note that there are no addresses beside the names, to obtain those you need to pay. Select 65+ in the age selector and the results column will be reduced to those of our age.

 

With a common surname you may have 200 or more choices so you will then be in for a long haul but more uncommon names will give much less choice.  Back to the location selector on the left you will see all the home counties of your results and if you click a county the centre column will show you those people in that county. Always cancel your county selection before trying another.

 

In the centre column you will see that the other occupants of the dwelling are listed so this is a big help if you know the name of your man’s wife.The names that you see in the bottom section of the centre column include what 192.com call Historic Results. You will note that these names are not on the current Electoral Roll and to view them you need to obtain more expensive credits which at present we have not done.

 

Perhaps I should say here that in 2002 the British Government allowed voters to remove themselves from the published Roll and from my recent experience a large number of Brats have exercised that right.  Another important point that should be mentioned is that you are only permitted to do 10 free searches per day.

 

Having found a county of residence for your possible results you then go to BT Directory Enquiries at:

http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publisha.content/en/
search/residential/search.publisha

and enter the surname and county and if you are lucky you will find a number for your mate. A huge number of Brats have also removed their names from the phone book so at the end of this searching you may still have no result. In that case contact me with all the available information and I will use the credit that I hold, on behalf of the society, to do a search for you.

 

To do a blanket search on BT you have to enter your man’s name and initials in the Advanced Search box and then search the country by changing the county for each search. It is possible to do larger area searches by entering West Midlands e.g. Use caution when navigating the BT web site. Quite often my firewall will not allow me to open pages because of malware.

 

Another avenue of research is via Friends Reunited. This is especially useful if you went to school with your errant mate. Go to www.friendsreunited.co.uk  and sign up.Then select your school from the drop down menus, enter your years and hopefully your mate is there. If not you may recognise other classmates who might know his location.

 

You can also enter the various RAF Stations and Units at which you served to find other members there. This is a large site and should be explored.

 

Similar to Friends Reunited is Forces Reunited at www.forcesreunited.org.uk   You can obtain some free information from this site but you need to pay a subscription to obtain full benefits .I subscribe to and monitor this site for 90th members.

 

Another Forces reunion site is Service Pals at www.servicepals.com    This site is free to use after you have signed up.  Don’t forget that it is possible to find mates by looking for other people that served with you both and asking them for information.

 

Of course a simple Google Search may bring the desired result especially if your man is a member of a sporting club or other such organisation. Don’t expect to find him on the first page of results though, you may have to go deeper than that.

 

If you are a member of Facebook or one of the other social networking sites you may just strike lucky especially if he has a distinctive name or you recognise his photo. I have found two members like this.

 

Finally there are always the  “Searching For “  columns in newspapers and magazines. Not quite smacking of desperation but I think you would need a lot of luck to score by this method.

 

If you require assistance please don’t hesitate to contact me. Happy Hunting!

 

 

Page last updated 31st January 2010