In the state of Florida, public records are generally held by one of three agencies:

1. The county courts–County courts house vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce), wills, land transactions, civil and criminal case dockets, probate records, tax lien records, and similar documents.

2. The sheriff’s departments in each county–The sheriff’s departments keep arrest records in each county, along with mug shots.

3. The property appraisers in each county–The property appraisers keep records of who owns property, as well as when a property sells, and for how much. You’ll also find the taxable value of each property at these agencies.

The Florida Department of Vital Statistics in Jacksonville also houses some records. You’ll find state-wide birth, death, marriage, and divorce records there going back to about the 1920’s, depending on the record. For vital records earlier than that, you’ll need to go to the county court house in which the event occurred.

The only records that are sealed are birth records and juvenile records (both civil and criminal, including guardianship papers). To get either, you have to be either the person named in the record, or the parent of that person. Birth records are unsealed after 100 years, at which point anyone can request them.

The Government in the Sunshine law is responsible for the openness of Florida’s records. This law was put into practice under the presumption that official government records are part of the process of governing, and that in a democratically elected government system, the records of the government ought to be available to the public that elected it.

Many counties in Florida are now putting their public records online for anyone to access. Some of the larger counties in the state, such as Hillsborough, Polk, Orange, and Dade, have scanned images of documents on their websites, so you can view the entire record without leaving home (for privacy reasons, documents pertaining to family law cases are only viewable at the court house in these counties). Other counties only have the indexes to records available online, so you have to go to the court house in person to see the entire record, or use a records retrieval service like www.inforegistry.com to pull up the records on your computer for you. Still other counties have no records available online yet, which makes Public Records Pro even more of a necessity for you if you live too far away from the county you’re researching in to drive there.

The state of Florida public records are among the most accessible in the nation. Whether you’re looking for just one or many, www.inforegistry.com can help you find and view them without ever leaving your house. That’s convenience you can count on!

You can view the entire record you’re looking for at the appropriate county court house for free. Nearly every county court in Florida has a computer with an internal internet connection that you can use to view the records you need. This connection isn’t viewable outside of the court, which necessitates an in-person visit. For courts that still don’t have a computer system, you can go and look through their actual old record books to find records you can view at no cost.

Of course, if you want to get a copy of a record, there will be a small charge. Usually, this is no more than a few dollars, unless the record has many pages. The more pages a record has, the pricier it will be to get a copy. While costs for copies varies from court to court, a dollar a page is about average. This can really add up if you need a lot of copies!

Some of the bigger counties in the state make a limited number of full free Florida public records available on their websites. Counties such as Hillsborough, Orange, Seminole, and Dade will allow you to view entire land transaction files (such as mortgages), marriage licenses, and criminal records online. However, for other documents, such as wills, probate, birth, divorce, death, child support, and family court documents, you’ll still need to go to the actual court house to view the entire record. Some records, such as guardianship documents, expunged or sealed records, and anything else pertaining to minors are not viewable by anyone except the person named in the documents, or their parents.

While finding free Florida public records is wonderful and convenient, it’s not always possible to get what you need without paying a small fee. The more records you need, the more often you need them, and the more pages in the record, the more money you’ll pay. Even if you’re just going to the court house to view a record without getting a copy, you’ll still pay money in gas and spend your valuable time to get there. In these cases, free records aren’t really free at all.

A much more cost-effective solution to getting so-called free Florida public records is to use a records retrieval service to obtain them. www.inforegistry.com is the best service to use. It has millions of records from every county in Florida, and all over the country, available at one convenient website, so you don’t have to leave home to get what you want. You only pay a small, flat fee of $2.95 a month (billed in one yearly installment), and you get access to an unlimited number of records. You’ll likely save money on the cost of copies at the court house with the first record you find on www.inforegistry.com. It’s a real no-brainer for anyone who needs public records, since using this fantastic service will end up saving you a ton of money, as well as a lot of time. When you need public records, go for convenience and value with a money-saving membership at www.inforegistry.com! Click the banner below to join:

When you are looking for your own court records, or hoping to find some for your ancestors, you can go through a variety of sources, but you should know the most reliable of them all. Each state has an official web site through which you can either order these online or find out how you can mail in for them. These are much harder to get in the past thanks to identity theft, but you can find out all about them through such a web site.

Florida court records for those that have passed on are going to be much easier to find than for those who are still living. These vital records include birth, death, marriage, and divorce. You may also find home and property deeds and wills. Whatever the case, if you can find these for your older relatives, you have found important clues to tell you the next person down the line, and also, to verify that you have the right person. Each is equally important.

There are some great places where you can go to search out the court records of your ancestors that came long before you. These are called genealogy sites and they are everywhere online. Some have a membership fee and others are free thanks to volunteer efforts and donations. Not only can you search these for those records that you seek, you can also see if something comes up through the search engines.

The downside to searching out these court records is that it can take a while if you don’t know where to look or if you don’t have a lot of time. If you find a site that can find court records for you within seconds, would that be worth a small fee to you? That is something that is up to you. Know these sites can help so you know your options when searching out your family tree.

www.inforegistry.com is an excellent service that can find these Florida court records for you in a flash, so you don’t have to spend hours of your valuable time looking for them yourself.