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Online Guide to Public Records

by June Campbell

Are you interested in whether your business colleague
contributed to the presidential campaign? Wondering who owns
the abandoned lot on the other side of town? Or on a more
persona note, are you trying to trace your family tree and
can't remember Great-Aunt Susie's third husband?

You might find your answers through an online public records
search. Due diligence applies, as the data at some sites can
be outdated or inaccurate. The sites below are good bets, but
the list is by no means inclusive.

PACER (http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/)
Public Access to Court Electronic Records is a government site
that provides electronic access to case and docket information
from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts, and
from the U.S. PartyCase Index. Most of PACER's records are
available on the Internet, but a few must be dialed directly
via communication software and a modem. Most jurisdictions
offer toll-free numbers for modem dialing.

PACER provides an array of information, including a listing of
all parties involved in a case, compilations of case related
information, dates of events recorded in a case record, a
claims registry and more. Criminal court records are not
available through PACER.

PACER registration is free, but a service fee applies.
Effective 2005, Web searches are levied at a rate of eight
cents per search page, including pages telling you there are
no results. Dial up PACER systems charge sixty cents per
minute. You pay nothing until you accrue over $10 in a
calendar year. Accumulated fees of under $10 are erased at
years end.

U.S. Search (www.ussearch.com)
This highly rated search site uses patented technology to
access billions of public records. Search categories include
private investigative services, criminal records searches,
background searches, financial services, home and family, real
estate reports, business searches and court records.

To expand upon just a few of the uses you might make of this
site, you could find out if a home contractor has liens,
judgments and bankruptcies before contracting with him or her.
You could do a background check on a child care provider
before trusting your children to his or her care. You could
find your old military buddies, locate your lost sweetheart,
find out if Cousin Bruno is out of prison yet, look up the
status of a civil lawsuit filed against your former boss --
and various other tidbits of information. Additionally, you
can search your own public records to help protect yourself
against identity theft.

To protect individuals from identify theft, U.S. Search does
not provide social security numbers, date of birth, credit
history, and employment records, nor to they offer bank
account information or other private financial information.

U.S. Search is a fee-based site. Searches range from about $3
to $300, depending on the complexity of the search that you
choose.

Search Systems (www.searchsystems.net/)
Search Systems aims to be the Internet's primary source for
free public records. Site access is free, although some of the
linked sites may charge a user fee. Yahoo Internet Life and
PCWorld magazines rated this site as among the most useful on
the Web.

Search Site categorizes its links by nation, state, and
international databases. You can search for adoption records,
birth, death and marriage records, campaign contributions,
copyright and trademark information, foreclosures, and a
seemingly endless list of other documents.

Public Record Finder.com (www.publicrecordfinder.com)
Public Record Finder is another directory with multiple links
to web sites offering public record searches. Since no fees
apply, the site is financed through advertising revenues. The
owners do not guarantee the accuracy of records found at the
linked sites and do not provide assistance to those who cannot
find the information they want. Nevertheless, their link
selection is worth checking out.

Yahoo Real Estate (http://realestate.yahoo.com/re/ )
In addition to the usual searches for listings, real estate
agents, etc., you can also run a search of thousands of real
estate documents to learn the prices that buyers are paying in
your neighborhood. According to site information, this sales
data lets you analyze the value of your home or other homes.
The results include price, square footage, bedrooms and the
year built (if available). The School Search tool gives you
information about schools in a specified neighborhood.

GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov/)
"The U.S. Government Printing Office disseminates official
information from all three branches of the Federal
Government," says the Web site, adding that their mission is
to keep America informed. The site provides electronic access
to documents from a number of government branches, agencies
and databanks. For example, you can access Congressional
reports and records, public and private laws, Federal laws,
Presidential documents, and other related materials.

Additionally, the GPO makes publications from three levels of
government available for free public use in Federal depository
libraries throughout the United States. The Access site
contains links to the libraries and in some cases, to their
collections.

EDGAR (www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml)
Operated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the
Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system
(EDGAR) is an online database containing registration
statements, periodic reports and other forms filed by foreign
and domestic companies. Companies are required by law to
submit these records, which you can access and download free
of charge. If you're considering buying shares in a company,
you might want to check out the compulsory annual report on
Form 10-K or 10-KSB, which contains much of the same
information as the annual report issued to shareholders.

Electronic Reading Room
(www.irs.gov/foia/article/0,,id=110353,00.html)
Courtesy of the IRS, the Electronic Reading Room makes an
array of public records available for download. The Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requires the IRS (and other government
agencies) to make certain documents publicly available. The
IRS records include final opinions made in case adjudication,
statements of policy and interpretation not published in the
Public Register, administrative manuals, copies of records
previously released under the FOIA and others.

Local Public Sites
Lastly, check your local public web sites if you're looking
for information specific to your city, county or state.

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