How to Find Someone You Lost Touch With
Eddie — Founder
Published October 2026
Sometimes you remember the person clearly, but almost none of the useful bits.
You remember what they were like. Where you used to see them. Maybe the job they had, the suburb they lived in, or something oddly specific like the band they loved.
But their surname? Gone.
That doesn’t mean you’ve got nothing to work with.
I think the best place to start is actually before Google.
Write down what you genuinely remember
Don’t worry about whether it sounds useful.
Write down where you knew them from, roughly when, where they worked or studied, mutual friends, interests, places they lived, and anything they mentioned about what they might do next.
The odd details can be surprisingly useful.
“Worked in marketing in Brisbane around 2011 and was really into photography” can be more useful than a surname you’re only half sure about.
The thing I’d avoid is filling in the blanks.
Memory has a habit of quietly turning guesses into facts if you give it enough time.
Look for combinations of clues
One clue on its own usually won’t get you very far.
A first name is weak.
A workplace is weak.
A city is weak.
But put them together and things get more interesting.
If you remember someone called Daniel who worked at a particular company around 2008 and was talking about moving to Perth, that’s suddenly quite a specific little story.
That’s often how finding someone from your past works.
Not one magical clue. Just a few ordinary details that happen to line up.
Use public information, not detective work
Search engines, professional profiles, company websites, alumni pages and old industry articles can all help.
But I don’t think you need to turn this into a private-investigator exercise.
You’re really trying to answer one question:
Does this look like the same person I remember?
You shouldn’t need their home address or private phone number to work that out.
If you do, you’ve probably gone further than you need to.
Don’t fall in love with the first match
This is an easy one to get wrong.
You find someone with the right first name, roughly the right age and a familiar-looking photo, and suddenly your brain starts doing the rest of the work for you.
Slow down.
Does the timeline fit?
Does the job make sense?
Were they actually in the right place at the right time?
Are there details that clearly don’t match?
A good match usually explains several things you remember, not just one.
And if you find them?
Finding them doesn’t mean you have to contact them.
That’s a separate decision.
If you do reach out, keep it simple.
Say who you are. Remind them how you knew each other. Don’t make it a huge thing.
You might have thought about this person for years.
They might not have thought about you for years.
That’s okay.
The first message only needs to open the door.
Start with what stuck
You don’t need a full name.
You don’t need their current address.
You don’t need to know where they are now.
Sometimes the pieces you already remember are enough to get started.
That’s really the idea behind Someone I Knew.
Start with what stuck.
See what lines up.
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Eddie — Founder
Eddie is the founder of Someone I Knew, a privacy-first way to help people reconnect with someone from their past using the things they remember and information that’s already public.