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Other Records From Commercial Databases
Wonder if your new neighbor is a sex offender? At http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/register.htm , you can link to the offender registries of nearly 40 state law enforcement agencies (though listed on the site, California's list, which had been published by a private group, has been offline since August 1999). Other states include the Illinois State Police's "Sex Offender Information" page at http://www.isp.state.il.us/sor/sor.cfm, which allows searching by city, county and zip code. For the New York state sex offender registry, see http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/nsor/.
In more examples of the debate of what constitutes a "public" record and what does not, Texas provides free access to its sex offender database, but charges a fee to access its database of other convictions (http://records.txdps.state.tx.us/), and Oklahoma's database of sex offenders is made available at http://docapp8.doc.state.ok.us/servlet/page?_pageid=190&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30.
North Carolina makes its criminal and civil court records as well as statewide DWI records available for a fee at http://www.courtsearch.com/main.html, and Vermont (http://www.dps.state.vt.us/cjs/questions.htm) only makes its criminal records available to non-law enforcement entities if they obtain a VCIC [Vermont Criminal Information Center] Release Form signed by the subject.
If you want to see a list and picture of L.A. County's most delinquent parents, then go to http://childsupport.co.la.ca.us/dlparents.htm. You'll find Mississippi's at http://www.mdhs.state.ms.us/mswant.html. Out of state probationers and parolees living in Tennessee can be found at http://www.ticic.state.tn.us/Database/ISC_search.htm.
The FBI's Ten Most Wanted list can be found at http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/tenlist.htm.
What's available at the county level? Need birth, death or marriage records? Los Angeles County and Orange County, California do not provide this data on the web. Instead, the Los Angeles site at http://lavote.net/recorder/birth_death.htm provides detailed information on how to order these records by mail and provides the required forms. In Orange County, California, things move more quickly, for a small price, however. At the County Clerk's site at http://www.oc.ca.gov/recorder you are informed that you can order certified copies of birth, marriage and death certificates.
To check what type of information and documents that the counties in your state provide online, check FindLaw's links to all 50 states websites at http://www.findlaw.com/11stategov/index.html or Search Systems at http://www.searchsystems.net.
If someone has taken the time to make a social security claim for death benefits, the death record will be found in Rootsweb.com at http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi.
Are you trying to trace the other spouse's assets for a divorce client? The Univerity of Virginia's Portico portal site at http://www.indorgs.virginia.edu/portico/assessors.html links to many county assessors' offices that are on the web and permit owner name or address searches. In California, only eight counties will be found. The Los Angeles (CA) County Assessor's records are available and searchable via the Internet (by address only) at http://lacountyassessor.com/extranet/default.aspx. Also see http://lacountyassessor.com/extranet/Outsidesales/saleintr.aspx for information on renting or buying the records. In Orange County, California you can't even make a request over the Internet for property appraisal records, while in Orange County, Florida, the records are available free on the web.
If your county does not place its records on the Web, type the subject address, and zip code or city into Yahoo at http://realestate.yahoo.com/realestate/ and you will find the date of sale and price of the home (only from 1996).
