Seeing Double

I’ve been conducting background checks and people searches for almost a decade now. I’m not exactly sure if it’s a profession. Technically speaking, a profession involves a job which requires certification from a government body. But, then again, a profession may also refer to a vocation or an activity which one habitually does for a living.

I guess I could safely say that I’m already really good at what I do. Although you may contend that doing a people search on the Internet is a no-brainer, there are some tricks that are known only to professionals that could really speed up the process.

As good as I think I am, I committed a blunder recently when a client asked me to look for a particular person in Alaska. I can’t give you the person’s name, so I’ll just concoct a fictional one. Let’s call that guy Michael Doe. Michael Doe is my client’s stepbrother. They haven’t seen each other for 22 years. They were separated by their grandparents when they were just 2 years old.

I thought that the assignment was an easy one. The population density in Alaska is so thin that I think I would be able to find him even if I’ll go there and do the search personally. Of course, that’s impractical. So the next best thing (actually the best) to do is to search for him on the Internet.

I immediately found his name on the database. However, there were two Michael Does on the list. To make the situation more complicated, the photo attached to each of the two person’s file is the same. I thought that it was just an error. I called the site’s administrator and asked if they might have inadvertently duplicated Doe’s records. The person managing the site said that the files are different and that I’m actually looking at two different persons.

The guy on the phone was right. I should’ve read the records thoroughly. They’re really two different persons. The photographs are not identical either. Hmm I guess you already have an idea on why two different persons have, ostensibly, the same photo in their respective files.

They’re twins! Silly me. I didn’t read the entire request form of the client. If I just read a few lines more, I would’ve known that Michael Doe has a twin. They bear the same names, too, albeit the first one is Michael Doe II and his brother is Michael Doe III.

Talk about being very good at what I do. That twin twist really got me. This is the first time that I got a people search request where the person to be searched has a twin. I guess I have to be more careful and attentive next time. I’m sure this is not going to be the last time that I’ll be looking for a person who has a twin brother or sister. I just read a report on Yahoo! that twins are becoming more common.