Biographical Info

Questions to ask yourself

1. How well-known is this person? If a person is well-known, s/he is more likely to have an entry in a reference book or standard source.
2. What is the ethnicity of this person? There are many sources that provide bio info for individuals of a specific ethnicity.
3. Is this person alive or dead?
4. What field does this person work in(business, the arts, etc.)?
   

Basic Info

• Ancestry Library
  Use this source to identify D.O.B., family members, and addresses of individuals.
• QuickRef Biographical Sources
  Click on the Biographies category and you’ll get a list of resources useful for finding biographical info. Note: People usually have to be somewhat important to be listed in these sources.
• Subject-specific biographical sources
  If the individual is associated with a specific field, you should try locating a subject encyclopedia. For example, the Grove Dictionary of Art would be a useful source if you were covering an artist.
• International Who’s Who [NYU-Only]
  brings together current and hard-to-find biographical information on almost 60,000 of the most gifted, famous and influential men and women in all fields
• Who’s Who
  Who’s Who publishes a variety of directories in different areas (Who’s Who in Advertising, Who’s Who in Science), etc. Some of these are available in print in Bobst Library. To find them search Bobcat for “who’s who.”

Finding Articles

• LexisNexis
  • How to find an Obituary on LexisNexis
• Factiva
• Proquest
  To find an obituary, go to Advanced Search; select Document Type from the pulldown menu; click on “look up document types”; select Obituaries.
• Subject-specific database
  Can be useful if your person was well-known and/or a scholar in a certain field.

Criminal Checks

Doing a criminal check can be tricky.  Here are a few resources to get you started:

Zimmerman’s Research Guide: Criminal Background Checks (from LexisNexis)
Provides a quick overview of conducting criminal background checks–what you will and won’t find, as well as sources.

BRB Publications: Free Public Record Sites
This is a listing of free government public records sites, by state.  For NY, see NY State Inmate Information (includes former and current inmates).

The Virtual Chase: Art of Public Records Research
A nice guide to doing public records research with some pointers to sources.

Note that criminal records are going to be state-by-state, and what’s available will vary by state.  The best way to go about this is to figure  out the states in which the person lived and then look to see which databases are available for that state.