Teacher

The policy of this site is to respect the privacy of living people and the only living people I will be naming are people who have contributed to this web site, or other genealogy lists and web sites, and in this way have indicated that they wish to be identified on the World Wide Web as being interested in family or local history. Unless there is evidence to the contrary I assume that anyone who was born after the 1901 census could still be alive. While I may be lenient with some questions relating to the early part of the 20th century I definitely do not cover adoptions, former school or work friends, and similar situations.

Please Note: when this site was first set up some questions relating to the 20th century were accepted. This is no longer the case, unless the question is firmly rooted in the 19th century or earlier, or the query is related to the First World War as it affected Hertfordshire.

There are online directories that allow you to locate people by name but this might be difficult unless you already have a good idea of the address or the surname is very uncommon. (A few years ago I did a search and found that there were about 700 "Chris Reynolds" in the UK.) You might also try the www.friendsreunited.co.uk  site if you are looking for someone you went to school with. A number of local newspapers occasionally publish letters for people looking for friends and relatives, but policy varies from paper to paper, and they may only publish if you have a good bit of local history to link to the request, and your question about contacting your old friend/relative is not too intrusive. Some web addresses of modern Hertfordshire papers are on this site. You could also try newsgroups such as uk.local.hertfordshire.

Finally it may be worth trying a search machine such as www.google.co.uk as some people have their own web sites, or appear on others - such as in a group photograph at some event. I have definitely collected information on some individuals this way.