Trying to track down someone you need to get in contact with can be a long lesson in futility. This is only made worse when you don’t have an extended relationship with the individual or any connections, both in-person and digital. So, for those looking to get in touch with someone who sent a letter with no return address, you may have your work cut out for you.
Thankfully, you are on the right track towards finding them by stumbling onto this article. While we can’t promise that you will find who you are looking for, we can ensure you the best possible solutions with a very high rate of success. Whether or not you will find them will depend on the information provided in the letter and the sender’s footprint, both online and in public records.
This article is going to try to tackle the ugly task of finding a person without a return address. We will cover the best solutions available, from studying postmarks to tracking down individual barcodes. By the end of this article, if you do not find the person you are looking for, they have gone out of their way to remain hidden.
Ways to Find a Return Address
The truth is that there was a time when not having a return address could make a sender incredibly hard to find. Nowadays, things aren’t quite so difficult. The age of anonymity is rapidly coming to a close, and even letters listing people’s first and last names can give you more to go off of than you initially expected.
Below are three of the most trusted ways to track down a person who didn’t put an address on a letter.
Check the Postmark
Snail mail is not nearly as universally relied on as it once was, and the average twenty-something could easily be forgiven for not understanding what a postmark is. To put it in plain terms, a postmark is a stamp that shows the date and time the letter was entered into the post office.
More importantly, it also shows the state, zip code, and individual post office that was used.
While this doesn’t ensure the address of the person who sent it, it will usually give a relative location if they sent from their local post office. If the sender of the letter is intentionally trying to hide their location, however, it is entirely possible that they would send it from a post office further away from their area.
Use An Address Search
If you want to find someone and know their name and general location, your best bet is going to be an address search. An online address search allows you to enter a person’s first and last name, along with their city and state, to pull up a list of anyone who fits the criteria. Once you find the person in the corresponding list, the engine will pull any relevant public records.
These public records can include previous and current addresses, phone numbers, job positions, and even social media profiles in some cases. For those looking for more information on a letter, an address search can easily simplify the process and save you several hours combing through tracking data, barcodes, and barely legible postmarks with better results.
Use Tracking Numbers and USPS Barcodes
If you received a package instead of a letter, you can hunt down the tracking number and use it to see where the parcel entered the postage system. This can be done through the website of the postage service used, whether that be FedEx, UPS, or the United States Postal Service.
Speaking of USPS, they often have barcodes that they use to categorize the millions of packages and envelopes they receive, which can show when the package entered the system and potentially where it entered the system. This is by no means a foolproof plan to get an individual’s home address, but it can absolutely help narrow down a location.
A Quick Summary on Finding a Return Address
None of these solutions is ideal on its own and works best when used in tandem with the other answers provided. For instance, you may know the person’s name but not where they are located. In this case, using the postmark to gain more information can help you locate a city and state of the sender, which may give more insight into your address search.
Having mystery mail can be frustrating, particularly when a response can sometimes be time-sensitive. To save yourself days and weeks trying to hunt someone down, use the previous three solutions together to ensure you can find the person you are looking for.
