Ian Harm

About Tracing

Tracing and research work is at the heart of a significant amount of investigation and detective work. A crime or wrong-doing occurs and the investigator interviews or speaks to people to gather information or evidence with which to trace the person responsible for the crime or the wrong-doing.

Ask the Right Questions

Hopefully if the investigator asks the right people the right questions and the information or evidence is available then everything comes together and, in theory, there is a positive outcome. That is perhaps a simplistic view of things but I think you get what I mean. For many years, at a personal level, I have been involved in genealogical research, tracing my family tree and the origin of our family’s surname which is a pretty unusual surname to say the least (in the UK anyway) is an interest of mine.
Tracing Family

When I first started tracing my ancestry I didn’t have the internet for research or a computer to organise the results of my enquiries and research; everything had to be done by sitting down talking to people, writing down and collating as much useful information from them as possible and then ‘hitting the pavement’ to visit repositories of historical records and information.
Tracing Criminals

Likewise when I joined the police service back in 1981, computers (as far as the police service was concerned) were in their infancy. Fortunately, I ‘cut my teeth’ tracing people wanted for crimes they had committed or escapees from prison. Very difficult as those people knew that they were being sought and they were doing the best to avoid being traced. Despite all the effort and the hard work it was and still is something that I enjoy doing. The satisfaction of collecting small amounts of information with which to form a bigger picture is something that gives me immense satisfaction. I suppose that is one of the reasons I joined the police service because every day I got to listen to people and ask them questions, gather information which would, at the end of the day, hopefully solve a puzzle.

Investigative Jig-Saw Puzzles

That liking for ‘investigative jig-saw puzzles’ has now followed me into the commercial world. Now things are different, easier perhaps. If I need to know something I can ‘Google’ it. Yes, now there is a huge amount of information at our fingertips. The problem is that now, anyone with a modicum of technical skill can add anything they want to the World Wide Web and everyone in the world with a computer can read it. Is everything that we read on the internet true or accurate? I would say not by a long shot. An interesting fact I learned only recently was that 70% of people tend to believe what they read on the internet (Penny Power, Ecademy) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfv91k57DM ). A pretty shocking statistic really!

Analysing and Evaluating Sources of Information

During my time in the police service, as well as my time studying in higher-education, in addition to my time spent as an Intelligence Specialist in the police service, I was always taught to effectively ‘source’ the information I was collecting i.e. collate, evaluate and analyse, not just the information that was coming my way, but also the source of the information that was coming my way. To that end when I am tracing or investigating anything, I never take things at face value. I always question the quality of the information and also the source of the information and make an informed assessment of the likely veracity and usefulness of the information in question.

Probate and Beneficiary Tracing

Over the passed few years I have been able to use all those skills whilst tracing people for solicitors in probate enquiries. People who die intestate (without first having made a will) who do not have any immediate family or maybe they have lost touch with their family. The relatives need to be traced to enable them to receive their rightful inheritance. I must say it is a particularly pleasing task, uniting someone with an inheritance that they didn’t even know they had. One of the nicer parts of the job!

BigIthePI is the Screen Name for Ian Harm founder of IAC Investigations, a Professional Investigations Agency situated in the North East of England