Where the Records Come From

ThisNation does not collect information from the people it lists. Every detail on the site was already a public record or a commercially available listing before it appeared here.

Kinds of records

• Property and assessor records. County offices publish who owns a parcel, the year it was built, the type of home, and sale prices. These supply the address details and the property facts on a record.
• Address and household listings. Directories compiled from utility connections, change-of-address filings, and marketing lists supply the year-by-year address history and the household links behind the relatives, neighbors, and associates sections.
• Telephone directories. Published landline listings and carrier data supply the phone numbers and their type. The reporting year comes with the number, so an old landline is shown as previous, not current.
• Email listings. Addresses that appear in commercially available contact data. They are shown as text only and are never sold or used to send mail.

How records are assembled

The source data arrives as separate entries: an address here, a phone number there. Entries are matched into one record when they agree on name, birth date, and address over time. Each entry keeps its reporting years, and the most recently reported address and numbers are marked as current. Nothing is edited by hand.

The surname directory is built from the same records. A name is listed there only when at least one published record carries it.

What is left out on purpose

• Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and any financial account data.
• Criminal, court, and driving records. ThisNation does not license or display them.
• Records without a current address, and records of people who asked to be removed.

Accuracy

Public records lag. A move or a new number can take months to reach the sources above, and two people with the same name can be joined by mistake when their details overlap. That is why each card shows age, city, and relatives side by side: they are the fastest way to tell records apart. Use the site to find someone, not to prove something about them.

Removing your own record

If the record is about you, follow the steps on Remove My Information. Removal applies to this site; the public sources it was built from are not affected.