Much of an individual’s background can be found within readily available public records. However, your actual investigation will vary according to what information you have available at the onset. Usually the hardest investigation to put together is one where you only have a subject's name.

Depending on the purpose of the background check it can consist of the following:

• Police Record Check
• Credit Check
• Court Records Check
• Education Check
• Previous Employment Check
• Neighborhood Check
• Personal References

Checking previous employment can be as simple as making a phone call but of course will vary from business to business. Most businesses will not release any personal information but they can verify employment dates and overall performance of the subject.

Checking with neighbors can sometimes provide you with information that you would not have been able to obtain elsewhere. However, such information can be unreliable and usually requires a good pretext to obtain. It is usually worth the effort since it often offers other leads for you to follow.

Personal references such as those usually requested on an employment application are usually not even worth checking unless you have very specific questions that you feel might be answered. It goes without saying that not many if any will list references that have anything but good reports to offer. The actual personal references that a subject provides may offer you a more accurate picture of your subject than what they actually have to say. (i.e.: Do the references include professional people or respected citizens etc.)

Many investigators and other researchers will use online Internet information brokers to obtain public records. Nonetheless, with a little leg work, Internet surfing and research, one can obtain most of their subject’s background information from public sources.

It should be noted that this section’s purpose within the program is not to provide you with the actual addresses, phone numbers and Internet locations for a background investigation but rather to provide you with a general overview of what is available for performing a background check. The actual sources where you can find information are provided in various formats elsewhere within the Detective software.

The purpose of the reference information in this section is to provide you with general information on some of the sources that investigators and others use to locate people. The actual links and addresses to these information sources are located elsewhere within the program.

With the exception of adoption cases and those that have made every effort to hide, everyone leaves a paper trail that can be followed when you know how to go about it. The actual sources that will prove useful to you in your search are quite often decided by what information you have about your target at the onset. Therefore it is best to start your search by gathering every piece of information that you do have and putting it into one central place such as a journal. The Case Log is provided for such use.

Hopefully you are fortunate enough to locate the person you are searching for immediately, however, if not, you can use your journal to record any new pieces of information you find along the way. As you gather data about your target, not only will your journal become larger but so will the list of information sources that you can use.