Resources Available For Do-it-Yourself Public Records Searches

The most difficult part of any public records search is knowing where to start. Once you are aware of the kinds of information you have access to, and where to go for that information, the easy (but laborious) part begins: compiling records from disparate sources into one complete background profile.?

So the first thing you need to determine is what kinds of records are available in your municipality, county, or state. Unfortunately, there's a wildly varying range of technological advancement in different counties and states, so there is no step-by-step plan to get what you need, but a good place to start is with your county's official web site (it should have a .gov extension of be a subdomain of the state web site).

A few problems you might discover in this process include:

County-specific records: records are usually available in a locality only, so unless you know the complete address history of the person you are investigating, it will be very difficult to gather all of the documentation you need.

It takes a lot of time: each record source will need to be queried individually; sometimes this can be done online, sometimes through fax or mail, and sometimes in person. Many times, these records are mailed back to you, so your investigation could take weeks.

It's cost prohibitive: many records requests will carry a statutory fee of $10 to $20. Reasonable if you're only requesting one record, but it becomes prohibitive when you're requesting records from a dozen different sources.

Another option is to use an online database of hundreds of millions of records from tens of thousands of information sources. Because of the advanced nature of these databases, exotic searches can be performed, so you can find records on someone by knowing things like just their name, just their current address, and so on.

The largest of these databases is owned and operated by a commercial investigation agency, and they will grant you timed access to the data warehouse, often in periods of years, for a small flat fee. This gives you the option of performing unlimited searches over a long period of time.

Whichever option you choose, remember that all of this information is on public record for a reason, and it's there for your benefit. Take advantage of it!

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