I read an article in our paper about people who have Google-searched
for a specific individual using just their name, or with some info on
where they lived or worked, etc. I try it and don't get anywhere.  All
they say they put in is person's name, etc. and they get results. 
Know how I should do it? Thanks

There's some useful info here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=121958

Keep in mind that not every name has an equal Web presence. Many, many
people are not mentioned anywhere on the Internet. If a person has an
unlisted phone number and no personal Web page, Google may find no
information on that person because there's none to be found.

You may be searching for a person who hasn't had much public exposure,
of the positive or negative variety. In other words, they haven't done
anything (good or bad) to make other people write about them on the
web, nor have they self-published anyhting about themselves on the
web, therefore nothing comes up when their name searched for.

Alternatively, there are professional background investigation sites
such as http://www.backgroundchecks.com who conduct background
investigations (such as DMV records, court records, credit and
consumer reports, etc.) that are on-line based, for a fee.

omniscientbeing-ga
Google Answers Researcher

I have done a lot of such searching, for personal and other reasons,
and I would say that, as much as anything, success depends on the
person's name.  The hard part isn't getting the hits--it's finding the
right hit among the many possibles.  You are going to have a lot more
luck if the person you are seeking information about is named, say,
Aubergine de Marche than if she is named Anne Smith.

A few years ago, I was able to find and reconnect with half a dozen
old friends who happened to have somewhat unusual names, knowing
enough about them to pick them out among their relatively few
namesakes (in two cases, they were the only owners of their names in
the U.S.), but I have searched and searched for some others and been
unable to narrow, say, 339,000 instances down to a likely few, even
with the help of a middle name or initial.  Of course their parents
didn't know 50 or even 30 years ago that their names might be the
target of a computerized search engine.

I predict a gradual change in the patterns of baby names as a result
of people's desire to "ego-surf" the Web.  What do you think, will we
see "Taylor24117 W. Osgood" and "Daisy O_U_FoXy1 Wilson" on the
kindergarten roster a few years from now?

Apteryx

Also, when you search Google for somone's name, make sure you enclose
their name in quotes--type "John Smith" (with the quotes) into the
box. This narrows results to only those with the exact match inside
the quotes.

omniscientbeing-ga
Google Answers Researcher