Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address was a matter of opening the phone book and finding the name. This has become more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.

Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing demands to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical uses for lookup directories.

Locating Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number shows on your caller ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to the person who is initiating those bothersome phone calls.

People looking for such services include those wanting to identify a number frequently calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to identify a name registered to a home phone that may be unpublished. Anytime you have a number but aren't sure who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.

Finding Addresses

another common function is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the contact information associated with a particular number most services will deliver additional data as well, which includes the address of the home phone or the address associated with a cell phone number.

This may not be an everyday need for some people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For instance, consider a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run away or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses and names of locations the child may be at that time.

More common situations may be looking for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's friends. If you have the phone number you can find their address and mail out the invitation without calling and tracking down other busy parents.

Lookup directories can also deliver a connection to other kinds of information, like income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of the most current location.

There is a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal life demands particular information it is worth the money in the end. The fee is required because this variety of information is not easy or free to research, compile, and store, so distributing it immediately to others like you must also include a fee to account for such working costs.

There likely will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unlisted just like many landline numbers right now. The only way to gain access to such phone numbers is to put up a nominal charge either to do a one time number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory long term.