City records can uncover a wide variety of information on someone’s past and give you a brief overview of their life in general. City records are maintained by cities all over the United States and are required to do so under multiple state laws. In many cases, these laws also require city records to be released to the public.
Have you ever wondered if someone has ever been evicted from their home? What about if they’ve ever been arrested or convicted of a crime? Maybe you just want to confirm someone’s date of birth, contact information, or a list of assets. Whether you want to believe it or not, a majority of the information you’re looking for can be found in city records.
Due to the wide range of information available, city records are extremely useful tools for law enforcement, background checks, genealogists, and people just like you and me. They’ve been used to help reconnect family members, search for old military buddies you’ve lost contact with over the years, and even protect yourself from offenders lurking on social media and online dating sites.
When used properly, city records can help give you and your community a sense of transparency among each other. Although this will mean your information is at risk of being viewed, it allows a level of safety and protection from the people we encounter on a daily basis. After all, you’d be surprised at the information people have kept from you -- or even straight up lied about.
City records might contain vital records pertaining to the person you searched for. Vital records are major life events occurring in someone’s life that have been documented by the city or state government. For the most part, they will contain birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and divorce licenses.
Some states may have laws that require these documents to be sealed, but searching for city records can at the very least reveal someone’s date of birth, date of death, and the names of any spouses or ex-partners.
Cities and states are required to maintain documents revealing purchases of property, land, or any businesses owned by someone. This information can be found in a city records search to give you an idea of any homes that person currently owns -- as well as a history of that particular home.
Some city records searches will even reveal an entire address history for the person you searched for. This can include homes, rentals, apartments, condos, and townhomes. They will give you the full address, as well as a possible timeframe they lived there.
In some cases, it might even list possible neighbors and sex offenders in the area of that particluar address.
Criminal records are often a hot commodity when searching for someone’s city records. If you wanted to do a basic “background check” on one of your family members, friends, or social media encounters, you will be able to see if they’ve ever been arrested, convicted of a felony, misdemeanor, or infraction, been incarcerated, as well as any other penalty or punishment they could’ve faced.
When sifting through city records, you should be aware that an arrest won’t always lead to a conviction. This can be important if someone was found not guilty of a crime -- the arrest could still show up in their city records unless they have it removed.
Someone’s public history can be an embarrassing part of their history. We all know the day-to-day struggle of getting by financially, but we likely don’t talk about the public trouble we are in to our friends and family. Sometimes, the people who need the most help are the ones being the quietest.
If you suspect someone you know is going through a tough public time, you can search their city records to see any judgments, evictions, foreclosures, lawsuits, bankruptcies, liens, or anything else that might be contributing to their situation. This is a great way of getting the details you need without having to confront them directly.
It will even give you a court case number so you can search the court’s database for more information on the case that might not be included in the city records search.
City records can be viewed by anyone in the public, but there will be some laws and regulations preventing information from being released. This will likely occur in very serious cases or in situations that violate our right to privacy.
If you want the most accurate and reliable information available, you can go to each database located on the web and search someone’s name in each one, but this will take weeks and maybe months to complete. There are thousands of databases containing city records and you’ll have to search the right database for the right information.
Likewise, you can use our site for a simpler method that will pull information from all of these databases and put them in an easy-to-read report for you.
It doesn’t matter if you want to search for city records on yourself, your immediate family, distant family, friends you see everyday, friends you haven’t spoken to in forever, new interactions made over social media, or famous people, the information is much easier to find than you think. In fact, if you have their first and last name ready, you’re already halfway to the finish line.
With that name, you can enter it into our search engine located below and it will give you a list of possible matches. Once you confirm the right identity, you can open the report and it will contain any city records it can find on that name. Although many people will have the same name, the report will pull information that matches with the name, date of birth, address, as well as other information.
With our website, you can rest easy knowing you’re getting real information linked to people you know -- or thought you knew.
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