How To Find Public Records Online Free

Public Record Nightmare

Are you tired of searching for public records only to find a long maze of complicated web sites? Maybe you have tried to Google the records you are looking for only to be met by tons of web sites offering “The most records available anywhere”. At this point you must be getting very frustrated and pretty mad with all the time you have wasted.  With this page I intend to help you get the records you are looking for while minimizing the time spent looking. I will go over some relevant laws concerning access to public records and best of all I am going to point you in the right direction to find them.  I am not going to be uncovering any groundbreaking secrets, asking for money, asking you to sign up for anything or any of that jazz that has probably irritated you enough in your search.  Let’s Go!

Should You Listen To Me?

Just so you can be a little more assured I am not just some crazy guy with a keyboard I will let you know why I feel qualified to be giving advice in this field. It’s actually quite simple. I am a private investigator.  It is one of my main responsibilities to gather information from public sources. I have had to learn where to look to get the most relevant information in the most cost effective manner for my company.  With these crazy days of the internet, online public record searches have become a little easier then they were in the past.

Public Records: The Hard Way

Before local, state and federal governments began publishing documents on their respective web sites the only way to gather information on public records was to actually visit the office they were housed in and make a copy yourself. Of course this was miserable. Not only did you have to figure out where your document was but then you had to go there and dig and dig and dig through almost ancient looking binders of mind numbing records. Finally after an average of two hours of searching you found what you were looking for only to discover you did not have the fifteen cents they charged for a photocopy.  Obviously no one around you possessed that magic dime and nickel that was keeping you from the fresh outside air. After begging and pleading with the clerk they would let you go on your way with your copied document.  It only got worse when you would get back to the office to discover that you had copied the wrong document and would need to return to that record vault from hell.

The Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is really what makes public record searches possible. This was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 6^th 1966. The act makes it mandatory for all government agencies to make any non exempted information available to the public. The agencies were also required to provide procedures for requesting public information.  This is most commonly done in the form of a written request.  There are nine exemptions listed that protect certain documents from being released to the public. As listed in Title 5 of the United States Code they are;

Through the years and different presidential terms the FOIA has undergone some changes. I have provided some link in the Links section if you would like to learn more information on the Freedom of Information Act.

Exemptions

•   (A) specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and (B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order;
•   related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency;
•   specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than section 552b of this title), provided that such statute (A) requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue, or (B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld;
•  trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential;
•   inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency;
•   personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;
•   records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, including a State, local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution which furnished information on a confidential basis, and, in the case of a record or information compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation or by an agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation, information furnished by a confidential source, (E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law, or (F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual;
•   contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions; or
•   geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells

Public Records Today

Fast forward to today. With the advent of the internet, high speed connections, PDF files and government spending we can now find a lot of this stuff just hanging out on the World Wide Web. It is all about knowing where it is and how to get there. Now that we know that most government agencies are required to supply us with public record information where is it? Most government agencies got a little bothered by the massive amount of requests they were getting for information. They began to start listing document on their websites in searchable forms. This is awesome! No more record vaults or dusty books! With the constant development of information technology the searchable documents are becoming easier and easier to find. For more info on Searching Criminal Records see this other hub.

The Big Ah Ha

Ok here is my advice on where to look for records. First off depending on what you are looking for you will need some information to start. For most court records you will need a full name and date of birth. You will also need to know what state or county the subject resides or had resided in. For property records you can use the owners name or the address of the property.  Some states list the courts by the geographic districts they serve. For civil and criminal records some states go by state wide or county wide.  I would start with the states home page and look for a link for “records search”.  The judicial home page is a good starting point in most states.  For business records I would begin at the Secretary of State’s home page. Once you locate the proper office for the record you are searching you will need to spend some time navigating the web site. Some of the sites are very straight forward with links from the home page while some are a little more hidden. If you find yourself stuck on a record it never hurts to call the government office and inquire as to where you can search their record databases.

Connecticut Public Records Example

I am most familiar with the State of Connecticut’s search so I will provide an example from there.  Let’s say we are looking for court documents concerning one Santa Clause DOB 12/25/1980.

Start off at the CT judicial Home Page. In the left side navigation bar you can see the menu option for Case Look-Up. This will give us the choice of Civil/Family, Criminal/Motor Vehicle, Small claims or housing. Select one of those choices and you will be taken to the search query page.

I have picked Criminal/Motor Vehicle pending cases for this example. This search asks for the subject’s last name first initial and birth year. You can fill in whatever information you have and then narrow down your results.  One you get the hang of how most government sites lay out their searches you will get a lot better are getting results.

Whhaaa this is too hard!

If this seems like something you can’t handle or do not have the time to research there are other options for you. I said I would show you how to do public records searches for free not sell you something. In the spirit of providing the most information I will include the FEW background and public records searches I have used and gotten decent results from in the Links section. The reason you need to pay for a report or subscription for them is that do all the leg work that I just outlined above. I also have a blog that outlines Investigative Site Reviews. There are a lot of paid database, Public Records Searches, Background checks and Reverse Phone web sites out there. To be honest, we use database searches that are only available to licensed Private Investigators or Law Enforcement. Your other option would be to hire a Private Investigator. (highly recommended, just joking folks but hey we are really good!)