How we check records information
Every fact on this site comes from an official source, is checked a second time by a different researcher before it is published, and carries the date it was last checked.
On this page
Official sources only
We use the office's own website, state statutes and court rules, official fee schedules and official state directories. A county's main website must be one the county or the state itself points to; the US Census Bureau's Government Units List and the federal .gov domain registry help us find it, and we open every address to confirm it works. A vendor's portal (for example a records search run by a software company for the county) is listed only when the office links to it from its own site, and we say who runs it.
We never use data brokers, people-search sites or other record directories as sources. When an official site could not be opened from our servers, we used a dated copy of that same official page in the Internet Archive, and the source list names the page itself.
Two researchers per record
One researcher builds the record for a state or county: each fact is stored with the source it comes from and the exact words on that page. A second researcher then re-opens every source independently, matches every quoted passage against the live page, re-reads values such as fees and phone numbers, corrects what is wrong and records each change. A state or county page is published only after that second check. If something cannot be confirmed, it is left out rather than guessed.
What "free" and "fee" mean on this site
A search is labelled Free search only when the office's own page says it is free, and Fee charged only when the office states a fee. Many searches are free to use with a fee for copies; those are labelled Free search, fee for copies. When an office does not say, we show no label.
Fees and the copy cost calculator
Fees are quoted in the office's or the statute's own words, with the source. The copy cost calculator uses only fees that state a clear price, and it rebuilds itself from the checked fee wording: if an office changes the wording and a number no longer matches, that place drops out of the calculator until it is checked again.
Dates and updates
Each page shows the date its sources were last checked, and its source list gives the check date of every source (once, when they were all checked the same day). Fees and office details change, often at the start of a fiscal year or after a legislative session, so check the office's own page before you pay or travel. We re-check a page when its research is updated and whenever someone tells us something has changed. Changes made after publication are logged on the corrections page.
What we leave out
We do not publish pages for places we have not finished checking, and we do not fill gaps with general statements dressed up as local facts. Personal records themselves (names, addresses, case details) never appear on this site.