Ever since the Freedom of Information Act was signed into law in 1966 gaining access to public records is guaranteed by the federal government in all 52 states including Texas. Everything from birth and death records, divorce and marriage records, to criminal and court records are freely available to the general public.

So where do you find all these freely available Texas public records? Unfortunately this is where the law is of little help because these documents and records tend to be scattered across different governmental agencies on the local, state, and national levels.

Getting those records is easy, simply go to the agency where there records are being kept and ask for them. The hard part is determining which agency has the records for the person you want information on.

Let’s look at Texas and getting court records in that state. On the county level you just need to go to the local county court house and request any court or criminal records on an individual. It normally takes about 72 hours and you will gain possession of any and all records the Court Retriever was able to find.

Here’s the catch; there are 254 counties in the state of Texas each with its own court house. Now add in all the municipal, state, and federal courts and you begin to see the problem. Each court house keeps its own records, which means if your person of interest has a record in more then one you will need to make a request at each court house.

If this sounds like it could be a time consuming undertaking that you would rather not go through then you may want to consider the alternative; an internet data search service that accesses Texas public records with a simple click of the mouse that returns comprehensive results in a matter of seconds.

These services do charge a small fee, usually in the $20-$40 range depending on the service and the amount of information you need. But the time savings make the price well worth it. And the good services allow you unlimited use of their search features for the lifetime of your membership. It’s like having your own personal private investigator inside your computer.