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Research Guide

Professional History

TinEye

Description:

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. When uploading an image, you can find out where it came from, how it’s being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there are higher resolution versions.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

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USASpending.Gov

Description:

This database is maintained by the Department of the Treasury Bureau of Fiscal Service, and it has data on federal contract awards dating back to at least 2008. Use it to find government contracts awarded to a candidate or their companies, Small Business Administration loans disbursed to them (such as Paycheck Protection Program loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loans), and government contracts awarded to a candidate’s donors, an individual’s business associates, or relatives.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Associated People

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USPTO Patent Search

Description:

This database allows searches by inventor name, applicant name and assignee name, among other options. Use it to identify patents registered by or assigned to an individual or their companies. An individual’s business associates may appear with the candidate on patent documents.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Associated People

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USPTO Trademark Search

Description:

The United States Patent and Trademark Office database allows searches by trademark name, owner name and owner address. Use it to find any trademarks registered to an individual, their businesses or their addresses.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Professional History

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Valital

Description:

Valital is a paid resource that searches publicly available information. Using it, you can extract, filter and analyze online media on people and organizations you’re researching. It creates a well-organized clip search that makes it easy to know where to start with your research.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

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ViewDNS.Info

Description:

Search ViewDNS.Info to find information about domain registrations and other aspects of website infrastructure. Its reverse WhoIS lookup by email address can provide records that are not in Whoxy, so search both.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Professional History

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Wayback Machine

Description:

The Wayback Machine archives and preserves websites. You can enter a URL and view the website as it appeared on past dates when it was captured and archived by the Wayback Machine. You can also conduct keyword searches to return archived internet content. For example, if an individual was an executive of a defunct company that no longer has a website, enter the defunct company’s name into the Wayback Machine keyword search to find archived versions of the company’s website.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Political History, Associated People

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Whoxy

Description:

Whoxy allows a variety of searches related to domain registration records, including free historical domain registration data that you can search by an individual’s email address. Though a domain might be currently registered to a service such as GoDaddy, in the past it may have been registered to an email address identifying the website’s owner.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Professional History

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Yahoo Image Search

Description:

Use Yahoo Image Search to find visuals such as photos, vectors, screenshots and icons.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

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Yandex

Description:

Yandex is a suite of internet search tools hosted by Yandex, LLC, a Russian technology company. This site indexes networks and pages on the internet outside of the West and is useful when searching for information about individuals in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

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Zillow

Description:

Zillow is a free website that provides photos and data on real property throughout the U.S. Its property data is generally sourced from county-level tax assessors. (As primary sources, tax assessor records are more reliable, so use them to verify anything reported in Zillow.) Zillow complements tax assessor data by also providing data on a property’s listing history. For example, Zillow may report that a property owned by an individual was recently listed for rent, suggesting that the individual may no longer be living there.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Personal Finances

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