Finding Someone's Address Without a Phone Number

la-gamine

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I have a situation where my MC has to locate someone's home without using a phone number since they're unlisted. This is 1988 France so no internet either. What would be the correct method of finding this information? Town hall? The police?
 

Trebor1415

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That's a toughie. Who is the character who needs the info? I don't see the police sharing that info, unless it is an official request from a different police dept.

Does the character at least know what city the person lives in? If so, that helps. If the person owns a home looking at public records such as tax rolls might help, if those are available in France.
 

la-gamine

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The person my MC is looking for is her grandfather and the only thing she knows is that he lives in Paris.
 

EMaree

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Is your MC a native French speaker? She might be able to do a bit of social engineering, contacting his workplace, or some shop he regularly visits and getting them to spill the address.
 

MDSchafer

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I just made up a name and picked a country at a random. I followed that to a Linkedin page and after that I had his address, two emails, a telephone number and a picture of the exterior of his his house. If I really wanted to use some of the pay services I could have had his DOB, employment history and potentially run a criminal background check on him.
 

Old Hack

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The electoral register would work in the UK, I think, and I'm sure there's a similar thing in France.
 

King Neptune

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Local tax records may also show the address. But with that Linkedin result what else would you need?
 

Torgo

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I just made up a name and picked a country at a random. I followed that to a Linkedin page and after that I had his address, two emails, a telephone number and a picture of the exterior of his his house. If I really wanted to use some of the pay services I could have had his DOB, employment history and potentially run a criminal background check on him.

But not in 1988 ;)
 

benbenberi

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There wasn't much internet in France in 1988, but there was a lot of Minitel. It's possible there might have been some way to find an individual's address through that service - it had very deep penetration.
 

King Neptune

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In 1988 local tax records might have worked. They would be the way in the U.S.A., but I don't know about France. But even in the U.S. one would have had to go to the local government building or hire someone to do that.
 

Maxx B

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I'd go with social engineering. You would be amazed what information people will give someone who is confident and believable. Especially if they chance upon a busybody who thinks they might uncover some juicy gossip by helping your MC.
 

Wilde_at_heart

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The person my MC is looking for is her grandfather and the only thing she knows is that he lives in Paris.

Why not give her *something* that has an old address of his on there, that could lead to a newer one or something?

And yes, some other poster had mentioned Minitel (I'd forgotten the name of it) and iirc it was rather internet-like in many ways.
 

la-gamine

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Why not give her *something* that has an old address of his on there, that could lead to a newer one or something?

And yes, some other poster had mentioned Minitel (I'd forgotten the name of it) and iirc it was rather internet-like in many ways.

I suppose I will do something like that. I didn't think it would be so complicated...