Finding old friends online

I have been trying to reconnect with some old friends online. I have found a couple via "linked in" pages, etc, but there seems to be no ready way to e-mail them. I would prefer not to subscribe to these services.

The normal trick of seeing if they are subscribed to any user groups has not been fruitful so far to retrieve e-mail.

Are there any good, free ways to find the e-mail addresses of people if you know their name and rough location or some general site they are part of (like linked in) but don't have an account or their actual e-mail address? I have like 2-3 people I would like to contact this way, and they all fit into this category---either part of a site I would have to subscribe to (and then who knows if I would even have any luck) or names I can find but not get a mail for.

It's a double edged sword. When people put their email on the Internet, they get swamped with junk so most are reluctant to do it. You might try a site like "White Pages" http://www.whitepages.com/

I put up a password protected web site for my high school classmates. One feature allows them to add their names, emails and graduation years to a sorted list that can be clicked to create an email to that person.

We had a very tough senior English teacher so to limit the membership, they had to enter the last name of, "The most feared senior English Teacher" to set up an account. At the beginning I sent the link to the few emails I had and asked them to send the link to the ones they had. Within a month there were hundreds in the list. It worked out great for connecting the members and helped organize class reunions as well. You might try that approach if it would work in that situation.

There is a new site that could help finding friends: http://www.chachanged.com. The caveat is that the person must have created a listing but the purpose of the site is to link old outdated contact info with current information. Make sure you create your own listing so if a blast from your past is looking for you they will find you.