How do I search for a specific first and last name?

There are many search engines you can use. Dogpile combines a lot of them but I don’t think it allows search operators which were already mentioned above.

For me, if I want to find something online, sometimes I can let my intuition allow something to happen over time, whether just sitting in it wracking my brain for a few minutes, or by coming back to it.

Librarians are experts at searching for stuff. Personally I might not mind asking such hypotheticals to librarians but it may be out of their wheel house, so take that as you will.

Here’s to hoping she’s still alive, but just in case…

If you think she might have died before February 2014, you can try searching the Social Security Death Index. It’s available for free online from anywhere at various sites including U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014

If you think she might have died after Feb 2014, you can probably still search the ominous sounding Death Master Index that the Social Security Administration maintains, but it’s trickier. It’s not generally freely available, but you may be able to access it through your public library’s subscription to ancestry.com or some other genealogy database. Typically you have to go to a branch library and connect to their wireless network to access it. Ask your friendly neighborhood librarian. Or visit a LDS (Mormon) affiliated FamilySearch center; they typically have access to the Death Master File, I believe.

never mind

Then you should know some people she knew: close friends, siblings, parents, other relatives. See if you can find any of them and give them a call.

If she re-married she is probably going under her new husband’s name.

No siblings, friends 30 years gone, and her parents are buried (and this is the absolute truth!) right behind my current wife’s father.

What was her occupation?

Did she remarry?

I know some surely someone said Facebook, Instagram or those places. I don’t know how the searches work on them.

Last saw her over thirty years ago, and she was a housewife then, so the answers to both are I don’t know.

My IRL name is ridiculously common, and there are also three noteworthily successful people with my name. However, I can do a Google search that returns mostly references exclusive to me by adding facts about me that, while not unique, narrow it down substantially.

For example, if I wanted to generate hits only about me and not others with my name, I would use Google Advanced and type “Cairo Carol” in the exact word/phrase field, plus a lot of biographically relevant words in the “all these words” and/or the “any of these words” fields. If I type my college, the town where I graduated from high school, two or three of the countries I have lived in, and/or the name of past employer(s), Google is reasonably good about returning hits that relate to me.

It’s not perfect - the three other “CairoCarols” that collectively have a ton of internet presence include a BBC newscaster, a world-traveling photographer, and an academic in the area of Indonesian dance. But if you KNOW that, you can add terms to the “none of these words” field like - in my case - “BBC,” “photographer,” and “dancer.”

It can also be useful to use the same search strategies on Google Images, then scan the pics. A lot of times you can spot a photo of someone or something that you know is relevant to the person you are researching. Click on the photo and see what is on the site it came from.

Finally, to expand a little on the excellent suggestion of including “obituary” in searches that you do - she may still be alive, but probably a parent or other close relative has passed away. Her name will appear as someone who survived them, perhaps as “Van Tower of Duluth, Mn” or some such. That may help you narrow down your search/give you new clues to use.

Incidentally, I’m not a stalker, though I feel as though I may be giving the impression that I am. (And if I wanted to stalk, I bet I’d be above average in my use of internet tools to do so.) The reason I have moderately above-average Googlefu is experience: I worked for a publisher of news and general interest magazines circa 2002-2008, when search engines were just developing into useful tools. There is nothing like working in the newsroom at midnight, needing to get layout to the printer in three hours and some fact-checking concerns about the articles you’re reading, to hone your use of Google to answer last-minute questions.

Hey do you remember the attorney she had for the divorce. Maybe they have an address for her.

Instead of trying to locate her, I think you should file a restraining order. You’ve got her parents stalking your wife’s father, and her ex-husband standing behind you in front of the bathroom mirror every morning!

No attorney used.

I let him know that if anything happens to me, he dies immediately after.

In years to come people will envy her minimal digital footprint.

Would be worth trying “Tower wedding” to hopefully pick up something on the public record if there was a remarriage, and all permutations of her first name [Van, Vangogh, Vay-Vay, Vannie, Vanstrom]. In case she still hung on to the Mrs Casm name, try that as well. At least it could give you a current name.

Google: “I suggest you search for things I have lots of results for”