How to find anything
Records (Public/Court): Search Guides
Search court cases and order birth, marriage and death records from the offices that keep them. Court and vital records are held by the courts and registry offices that created them. Start there, not with a third-party site.
Court files and vital records are kept by the courts and registry offices that created them, and they set the rules on access and fees. Third-party sites copy some of this data, often incompletely. Going to the source takes a little longer and usually gives you the actual record.
Guides
What to try first
- Work out which court or registry holds the record: federal or state in the US, provincial or federal in Canada, and the right nation in the UK.
- Search the free case-law databases first: CanLII in Canada and Find Case Law for England and Wales. They cover cases with written judgments.
- For US federal cases, use PACER; fees are waived if you spend $30 or less in a quarter.
- For certificates, find the index entry first, then order from the official office.
Which guide do I need?
- You want to know if someone has been taken to court: How to Search Court Records and Check a Criminal Record. Where case records live in each country and what's free.
- You need a copy of your own criminal record: How to Search Court Records and Check a Criminal Record. Covers the basic DBS check for England and Wales and how checks work elsewhere.
- You're researching family history: How to Find Birth, Marriage and Death Records. Free indexes such as FreeBMD, then ordering from the official office.
- You need a birth, marriage or death certificate for official use: How to Find Birth, Marriage and Death Records. Who issues them in the US, Canada and England and Wales, and what the GRO charges.
- You want to check whether a company is in insolvency: How to Look Up a Business and Who Runs It. Companies House shows insolvency information free.
Coming next
We're writing these next. They'll appear here once they're checked:
- How to search for an obituary
- How to look up a bankruptcy