City and County offices provide direct access to primary documents such as Birth Records, Marriage Licenses, Civil Unions, Death Certificates, Divorce Records, Voter Registration, Tax Records and Estate Records.
To make the most of your visit to their office it pays to plan ahead and learn about document access and other logistics.
Start by visiting their website and make some notes on what is available. Our site makes finding a county office easy. Just type in city, state and press enter and we provide a listing of offices with website links.
Follow that with a phone call. It is always worth calling to confirm the details, especially if you are traveling several hours to get to their office; you want to be fully confident which office has which document.
For each item of interest you should ask the following questions. It is important to ask this about document type because most typically each type of document has its own date ranges and methods for searching. In some cases you will need to visit different departments or buildings, each with different search procedures.
- Specifically which building and which department do I go to for this type of document?
- What date periods are covered?
- Can I conduct the search on my own our does a staff member conduct the research?
- Are there paper records or microfilm?
- Is there an index?
- Can I directly search the index or does a staff member search the index?
- Is there a charge for searching for an item?
- What is the cost for copies of an item?
- Can visitors use the microfilm machines or are they reserved for staff use only?
- What are the open hours?
- Any tips on where to park (especially helpful in bigger cities with expensive parking)
Our database contains listings for several thousand City and County offices which you can locate using Google maps. Currently the majority of the listings are County offices, although there are numerous City offices as well.
In my own personal search for documents I have found it necessary to visit both County and City offices because different document types may be stored at each location.
Our use of Google maps was not based on street address but rather just City name and State. As such the physical location is not accurate. This map cannot be used to find the actual location.
Enter your City and State below to find an office.
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