If I know someone graduated with a certain degree, what college, and what year, with only a first name...?

Question

can I find them? Looking for birth family.

Answer 1

Assuming it's more than 20 years ago, you're not going to find much on the internet. But you will find a load of information in the university's annual (aka yearbook). Unless you're amazingly lucky and find a copy on eBay, your best bet is to visit the university library and pull the copy for the year in question. They'll break it down by degree and the individual schools within the university. There will also be information on fraternities, sororities, etc. If you're very lucky you'll find the person was in the Greek system and you can find their frat brothers/sorority sisters. People in the Greek system have a way of tracking down old friends through the national headquarters that the rest of us can't access.

Answer 2

Probably not without more research.  Colleges file according to last name.  They will have no real way of finding this person based on the information you have thus far.

Answer 3

I suspect the college would quote the Data Protection Act at you and hope you'll go away.  Maybe if you're very very persistant and under strict supervision in a room with no photocopier or digital camera, they might take pity on you and grant limited access, but I really wouldn't count on it.    On the other hand, if they have some kind of alumni book, they might let you look at that.

You'd probably have more luck spending several thousand pounds on a supercomputer and trying to hack the colleges mainframe or something.  Or burglary.  It's not the kind of information these places like giving out to the proverbial man in the street.

Until you try though, you can never tell.  They can only say yes or no.