Friday, October 3, 2014

Methods To Search For Free Public Records

By Claire Dowell


The earliest organized societies and ancient civilizations have established means of archiving events, quarrels, scientific discoveries, and taxation policies. Examples of these deeds can be found among the ruins of ancient Babylonian, Aztec, and Egyptian structures and artifacts. Such activities have been passed on from generation to generation, and have helped establish our identities as a people and the world as we know it.

Public records are pieces of information, proceedings, files, accounts, or other records which a government must maintain, protect, and update. Described as "public", these records must be available for public access, procurement and scrutiny. Public records include vital events such as births, deaths, marriages. Furthermore, documentations of most legal actions, voter registration files, criminal records, and government spending reports also fall into this list of records made available to the grasp of the general public.

Public records have a variety of uses in legal and statistical dealings. For example, marriage licenses and divorce records formally legalize their respective process. Additionally, divorce records are prerequisites for the issuance of new marriage licenses, and can be used to renew the wife's maiden name. Arrest records are vital in background checking of job applicants, candidates for public office, and volunteer child welfare workers to uphold principles of quality assurance and optimal risk alleviation. Records are indispensable to the efficient running of a government, as records serve as the memory of the government and can be used as basis for future actions. For instance, reports of government expenditures are publicized for governmental accountability and to guarantee transparency. The analysis of statistical trends and other research undertakings also utilize the contents of public records.

In the United States, public records are guided by the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to this act, different states have their own form of this legislation. In other words, regulations concerning public record access and distribution vary from state to state. For example, public records access and retrieval in the State of New York is fairly easy, compared to the many exemptions and restrictions in certain categories of documents in Pennsylvania.

As described above, different states implement different regulations concerning public records. Such rules also encompass the storage, maintenance, and distribution of these documents. Common repositories for public documents include the State Departments of Health, District Clerks, Clerks of Court, County Courts, and State Departments of Justice.

It is a basic part of the human condition to be in constant pursuit of things that will make life more convenient. This principle has taken form into the Internet in the 21st century. The power of the World Wide Web can now be harnessed to gain access to and procure almost all commodities and services known to man, including public records. Government entities and independent service providers now offer the public the power and the liberty to perform public record search towards a person they are pursuing. Records search via the Internet has become one of the most popular topics subject to search and retrieval efforts, because it can save one heaps of time, money, and exertion.




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