If you are looking to locate somebody there are a couple of ways that you can go about doing it. But with the advent of the Internet the best way is through search engines and other Internet services that allow you to locate somebody.
A generalized tool would be a search engine. You can type the persons name into the search engine and get results based on their name. This may or may not turn up search results depending on if their name has ever been in print, online, etc.