[bjcadena]

I'm not sure that this is the right place to put this, but,,,,,
I have approximately 2000 alumni records with no addresses.
At some point a previous employee thought it was smart to delete the addresses as they came back as undeliverable?
and I have about another500 constituent records(alumni or otherwise) that have invalid addresses
so my question is, has amyone used any of the online peoplefinder services?

I send in my addresses to BB for address finder twice a year to get NCOA updates done, but the cost for them to research my other records seams pretty high
some sights offer 30 day memeberships for 40 bucks and I'm wondering if its worth it?
anybody tried any of them out before?

I spend hours everyday searching all the freebie sites trying to find people in between cleaning up our database

thanks!
Billie Jo

[Melissa Siobhan]

I would start with your own registrars office to recreate some kind of address for these people even if it is very old (like their childhood address). Starting with nothing is very hard to match to a new address. There is very little way to confirm you have the right person no matter which service you use when you start with nothing.

Never ever let anyone delete addresses from your database - ever again. If you do not have an address change policy now is the time to create one. I will always keep every old historical address (even if a record has 10 - 15) because you never know when it might come in handy.

[bjcadena]

when i started last spring
I almost died when i reallized we had lost so many addresses
I have been going through transcripts dating back 40 years trying to fill in the blanks as well as populating SSN and verifying birthdates when I have time, but web searches from a single point seem awfully tempting too....at this time I have restricted access to the bio tabs, but of course we have several other "users" with supervisor rights,
again I'm dying on the inside
right now the policy is I am the only one that can change biographical info in either RE or EE
PERIOD
until I have it cleaned up to my standards and written policies put in place
in the meantime, I do want to fill in the blanks,,,
any other ideas on finding people?
anyone tried any of the online products?
alumnifinder?
peoplefinder?
uspeoplesearch?

[Melissa Siobhan]

I am sorry to say but none of those resources will have any good reliable results without an initial address to begin with.

Your registrars office can not electronically match to your list of 2,000 and give you an electronic file of names? If this can be done I still think this is your bet.

[bjcadena]

nope
I manage both of our school databases (ee and RE) so whatever we have in EE I have
the information prior to EE are essentially PDF file copies of transcripts, so I have access to that to look at and try to find the info going back 40+ years
that's our version of electronic files from the registrars office
that being said we have students who graduated in the last 10 years with missing information/addresses
poor data management to be sure prior to when I started, espcially since they've had RE "since the dos version" so I really don't see any good excuses from a database standpoint
not much i can do but work my way forward