Type the person's name into the search box of a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing, using quotes around the name. We will used "John Doe" as an example. If the person has a common name, you will also need to type in a search term that identifies him, such as the industry in which he works, the city where he lives or something else you already know about him. Searching this way will pull up a number of websites that may contain the email address, such as a biography with a contact link or the person's website.
Search for the company where the person works if you know this information and look around the website for a sample of an email address to a specific person. This will provide the email format used at the company, such as [email protected]. Once you have this format, you can plug the person's name into the format and try to contact him this way.
Review any online social networks to which you belong such as Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. If the person is linked to you on one of these networks, look at his profile to see if his email address is listed there. If it isn't, you can usually message the person through the social network.