In this modern age of computer technology, many are tempted to spend countless hours researching the computer search engines on the Internet to try to find your missing alumni. While this service does help with the very rare names, you will find most names are duplicated far too many times to be of much help.
After six heavy duty years of steady research, I have successfully located nearly 85% of all East and West alumni and staff from the very first class right up through the last class to graduate. These notes are about that research, and I hope some of this information will help you in your school research as well.
One thing you have to realize is that "Nomads ain't got nuthin' on US!" About 20% of the entire population of the USA moves every year, and some move several times within the same 12 month period. I update about 3600 addresses on our database every year, which is about 15% of our entire school roster - and that is just the ones I find out about.
Once you find a classmate, you have to really work at keeping in touch - to keep your database current. Address corrections from the Post Office are only valid for a maximum of 18 months. If you only update your class list once in five years, you will find nearly half of your list is no longer valid, and you literally have to start from scratch to find them all over again.
Every person who works on their class committee knows what I am talking about. We are all working on the same problem. This is truly one of the biggest reasons your class benefits by forming an alumni association for your school.
(All names used in the following narrative are for examples and do not represent any real person or persons)
Mary is working on the class of 79, and is trying desperately to find her best friend Jane Doe. Sally, from the class of 84, has John Doe's address, and he is Jane's brother. In the meantime, Sally is trying to figure out what happened to Bill Smith, and we all know what that means...which "Smith" do you call? It just so happens that Marge, on the committee for the class of 87, is married to Paul Smith, and that is Bill's brother... I think you can see quite quickly what kind of help we could all be to each other by sharing this kind of information.
In my research, I have made meticulous cross-reference notes about parents, children, spouses; even best friends to contact when our "nomads" move again, and again, and again... At this time, over half of all records for East and West Alumni have notes of this nature on their personal files.
I have also been cross referencing many other links for our alumni, to provide other benefits for the alumni included in each group. I work closely with Corning Community College, and we have mutually cross-referenced all known common alumni specifically to share address correction information. I also have cross-referenced many clubs, such as several of the sports teams, Drama, Chorus, even which alumni attended the parochial schools - all so each group can also have their own group reunions. AND, the more cross-referenced data I have on file, the more potential links I have to relocate our "nomads".
I started our entire roster by visiting our school libraries. By explaining my mission to form an alumni association, I was able to borrow the yearbooks from all years to begin the project over one summer. I carefully went through every single yearbook, and recorded all the names of each senior class under their school and class list in my database. After going through the photo section, I made a point of also going through the student index to make sure I picked up the names of students who did not get their pictures in on time.
I then visited the central administration. I borrowed the staff directories for all years, and recorded each person - who, which school, what they did and the year they were listed. As I progressed through each year's directory, I expanded the year listing for those who remained, and added in the new names as they came along. The end result is a directory listing the entire staff for the history of our schools, including the complete year range they were in service for our schools. This listing includes all administrators, every secretary, custodian, hall monitor, coach and cafeteria lady as well as all teachers.
The next step was to randomly look up names in each class right in the local phone book. As I made each call, I explained what I was doing, and asked if this was the "John Doe" from the class of "X". As I made each connection, I asked if they knew who was on the last class reunion committee. Occasionally, I had to find a second or third classmate before I got the name (and often the phone number) of a committee person for that class. Upon contacting the committee person, I explained my project, and asked if they had a recent address list for their class. Most were happy to supply the list from the last reunion, however, many only had very partial lists to begin with, and some did not even have their entire class listed.
As I entered the data from each class list, I began to notice alumni from one class who were obviously married to alumni from other classes ... (name change, and same address). As the decades of information expanded, it became quite easy to spot the children of many of our older alumni as they too became a part of my list. It also became quite noticeable that
many of our alumni themselves became staff in later years.
With the entire roster before me, I could see that there were common threads of many family names, and when I had located one person with a family name that covered multiple classes, I found that by contacting that individual, I often located the entire family - brothers and sisters, parents, children and very often - spouses that were also alumni.
The next phase was, and still is, the hardest part. Using the local telephone book, I called every listing that shared a family name that I was looking for. In our region, the Smith list is the hardest to track down, due to the sheer volume of listings. Just as a note of trivia, the second largest listing in our region is Clark.
This became one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest benefits of working on the whole school list at the same time. Many times, I called to explain my mission, and asked about any Smiths that attended our schools. I can't tell you how many times I was told "we don't have any Smiths, but I was married before. Are you looking for any Jones?" This same conversation took place with many names, and is one of the biggest ways I found those impossible to find alumni - shear dumb luck contacts! None of these contacts would have ever happened had I just been looking for one class.
In addition to wearing out several telephone books as I flipped through the pages and marked each call I made, another major source of information is right in the local newspaper. I regularly spend hours reviewing every detail in the Obituaries, Wedding announcements, real estate transactions, Campus reports and Service reports. Every one of these listings regularly contain details about our alumni and their families. In addition, I review all the news about local people, and clip articles about our alumni. I have several thousand articles about alumni from both East and West, and most are right from the pages of the Star Gazette and the Corning Leader. (Although I see listings in the Police Logs and Court Reviews, I intentionally do not save those articles).
My research now includes posting our entire missing list right on our website. As I find missing alumni, and folks who review the missing list send in details, I try to update the online list about once each month. For the past three years, I have been updating my missing files every day, and locate about 300 alumni every month. The problem, due the "nomad" effect, is that this count includes updating about 275 addresses for alumni I already had located. As a result, my missing list is only shrinking at about 25 names per month.
My current database contains 19932 names. I have located 16825, including 432 deceased, 44 who have specifically requested that we do not contact them, and 12 in the "County Bed & Breakfast" - Iron Bar Motel. Out of that total, nearly 12000 live in the "148.." Zip Code region. I also have addresses in every state of the USA, and at last count, 65 foreign countries.
I am now at a stage of updating and maintaining the list to try and keep it current. I find that "bribes" openly offered to our alumni strongly encourages them to send in their address updates themselves. The first "bribe" I offer our alumni is, I will send them a list of their new neighbors "from home" almost anywhere when they send in their new address. This service is not available in the local area since so many alumni still live in this region. The second "bribe" I offer is, if they contact me via email, I send them the list of all classmates' email addresses I have on file for the classes they would have known in school. (For example, if someone from the class of 75 contacts me via email, I send them the email list for the classes of 73-77.)
In addition to all the above, I have been "surfin' the net" and have found dozens of sites dedicated to listing high school classes, their email addresses and other details that vary from site to site. Most do have a fee to access the information, but I have successfully "harvested" many email addresses for alumni who are clearly identified by school and class. The key to this search is to use your "find" service, or favorite web search engine, and type in the word "alumni". Try several variables to find different lists - such as HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI, ALUMNI LISTS, ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS, etc. Most listings are for an individual school, but if you browse through the listings that come up, you will find some of these listings that include your school.
One of the keys to success is a very good database. I developed our database using "File Express 6", which is available from Expressware {telephone (206) 788-0932 } for only $104.00 including shipping. It is primarily a DOS version, but I have had no problem transferring selected data to Windows programming for editing purposes - such as special graphics, type format and font settings, etc. I have intentionally kept our database on a separate computer to make it impossible for computer hackers to ever be able to access our list via the Internet.
I sincerely hope some of the information here will give you some insights for your own research. If you are interested in any specific procedural information, I would be happy to pass along any additional notes you may request.