FindUSA was a very popular online service to help you find missing relatives and old friends. You could search for living or recently deceased Americans. The searches returned a lot of information, such as full name, date of birth, addresses for the past 30+ years; property records; court records; links to every person who lived at those addresses for the past 30 years, and much more. Typical reports provided links to individuals, their parents, spouses, and adult children. Apparently the service was a bit too successful and too powerful.
Citing concerns about privacy, FindUSA is being removed from public access. The company states that a business decision was made to discontinue the FindUSA database service to libraries effective immediately. Apparently the database will still be available to private detectives, credit reporting bureaus, insurance companies, and law enforcement officials, but it will not be available to the general public.
FindUSA was very popular with genealogists looking for twentieth-century ancestors or for living relatives. It was especially useful for Jewish genealogy researchers trying to locate families dispersed by the Holocaust.
FindUSA was popular with libraries. A number of libraries subscribed to its rather expensive service. Generally speaking, it was better (cheaper) to use a library's subscription than to pay for your own.
The loss of FindUSA shouldn't be too big a concern. There are plenty of other companies offering similar services:
www.1800ussearch.com
www.LocateAmerica.comand others.
However, I would assume that all these companies are being pressured about privacy concerns. One has to wonder how long the others will remain in business if the best-known service has pulled out.
Each of those charge a significant fee each time. FindUSA was good for a year on your Godfrey subscription.
I don't object to them all shutting down. It was way too much information to be floating around out there.
Posted by: ACheryl | February 03, 2006 at 06:04 PM
I for one will be sorry to see it go. I had used it to find cousins both on my side and on my husband's side of the family. I had just today thought of using it to find an old friend.
The information was ALL part of public record, so privacy concerns should not have been an arguement.
Posted by: C Weldon | February 03, 2006 at 06:45 PM
The loss of FindUSA will cost the Godfrey dearly in membership. It has provided a wonderful tool for genealogists and all of the information is public, so why should the rantings of a few paranoids prevent others from completing and expanding their research.
What I particularly object to is that there was no advance notice given and although the Godfrey had bought and paid for a subscription, they were just cut off.
Posted by: Marlene | February 04, 2006 at 02:05 AM
"The loss of FindUSA shouldn't be too big a concern. There are plenty of other companies offering similar services:"
Not true. FindUSA was one-of-a-kind. The other services listed pale in comparison to the depth and breadth of data on FindUSA.
Posted by: NEPilgrim | February 05, 2006 at 05:11 PM
Another sad victory for the Privacy KOOKS. Denying public access to this info is senseless while the information remains available to the entities that can hurt us the most - government, insurance, credit bureaus, employers. When the privacy kooks win, we all lose.
Posted by: John | February 06, 2006 at 05:56 PM
Well, I am one of those privacy kooks, and I don't like this one bit. If this information was actually being removed from everyone's access, then it might be a discussable good thing. But instead, it is being restricted to a privleged few -- cops, OK, government, they do everything anyway, but private investigators? Sounds like if you have $$$, you get the info, if you just want to find your cousins, you are out of luck. This isn't protecting anyone's privacy. It just means that rich people get to access private information about others, poor people can't.
Posted by: TracySt | February 07, 2006 at 10:08 AM
I really don't care one way or another.
I did do a search for myself on FindUSA and found out that my wife and I shared my house before we met, I had roommates I didn't know I had and lived at addresses I never lived at.
I founf the results presented by FindUSA to be almost entirely inaccurate and misleading. I pity the fools who now have to pay for this service. They'd do better with a fake family tree. (remember the uproar about how those were going to ruin genealogy?)
Posted by: Dino (All Dino, All the Time) | February 08, 2006 at 09:15 AM
The only thing FindUSA was comprised of was PUBLIC INFORMATION already recorded for anyone to look up at a courthouse or recorders office. Get a grip you Privacy KOOKS. There was no threat here. The people who feel threatened are those that want to hide from their background/history.
FindUSA was a tool that anyone would immediately recognize had to be used with "a grain of salt". Yes, some of the info is inaccurate. Did the KOOKS consider how that came to be? Could it have been the source was the listed person themselves who gave a false address because they were in hiding or trying to veil their presence??
Fact is, IF it's a publicly recorded document any person is entitled to see IF it's not sealed by court order.
Get a grip. 'Nuf said.
Posted by: Glen F. Pritchett | July 06, 2006 at 02:45 PM
This webb site has helped many,many people in the past. I lost contact with my son who was born in Germany in 1958. A friend in Germany has used this webb site to help Americans find their children that were left behind.
Now because some ass hole that has something to hide was afraid of being caught,we now do not have the help that we once did. Only in Amercia.
capt haroldholley lakeland fl
Posted by: Harold holley | September 13, 2007 at 07:39 PM