Conducting a background check on an individual is not just for companies anymore. There are a number of reasons why an average individual may want to conduct a background check on an individual and it may be very beneficial for them to learn how to conduct a background check on someone for free. People would be surprised at the amount of information on a person that they can obtain without going to a commercial background check website.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to conduct a criminal background check on someone for free is to check the public records of the state that the individual lives in or has lived in. These public records can be found online and will list all of the crimes that the person has been convicted of in that state. The information needed to conduct a public records search on an individual is just their first and last name and the search may be further refined by providing the person's middle name, birth date, or address.

Another way to conduct a background check on someone for free is to do an internet search using their name to see if anything about them or from them has been published on the internet. An important tip to remember is when searching the name on the internet, if you would just like to search the exact name you must place the name in quotation marks. If you would like to search all variations of the name, remove the quotation marks and all records containing the first and last name, even those separated by an initial or word, will be returned.