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Saturday, April 1st, 2023
I'm a big advocate of scanning records. However, there are drawbacks.
So, last week I drop into the local clerk's vault.
All the physical index books are gone. I had been in there the week previous for some research and did my normal thing getting a trail of title to figure out a boundary. I'm looking around in panic and went to chat with the clerk and she says the books are now removed and I have to use the computer. But, unless I pay the $1200 for an account or a small amount for a daily fee the clerk's employees have to log me in. I tried to set up a daily fee, but the system won't accept a credit card and one of the employees told me they are having a glitch making it work. So I have them do it but, Whoa!!!
When you use the index books you can't see more than 1/4 of each one on the screen (which makes sense because you would need a huge screen to cover the size of the physical books and the screens in the office are more of an 8x10), to work your way through them is painstaking. It took me most of an hour to get what I needed when it normally would have been a few minutes. It would have been worse if I had to go further back but my date was 1981 and luckily the relevant deed happened in 1980.
You can't search by name on the computer, only by location. So, the unusual name for the deed I was looking for didn't mean anything.
This is not good, doing a trail back to a patent may be nearly impossible, or so expensive it's better to hire a local title company for each task.
The Idoc scans are only available online from 2004 forward, that doesn't do it for our work.
What a mess.
I would probably up and retire. There is no better way to get what YOU need than for YOU to do it yourself.
It’s the curse of computers.
Siskiyou County has done a really great job of scanning the old index books, high resolution and in color plus they are available anywhere for free. Almost as good as the physical books.
The rest are various levels of suckiness.
Sacramento has everything in a searchable database which is a lot better than the old microfilms (they don’t have any physical books in the public area).
When I worked in a county that had a pretty lazy clerk and fearful subordinates, I'd see things like the reception number hand written on the scanned image page(a white page with sharpie) referencing the file or files were in the vault....
This was 2017. I couldn't fathom why this is allowed, nor what you've mentioned above for the cost. It's already paid for by tax payer dollars. They're invoking some random fee based on what?
This is what the NSPS and other organizations need to focus on to train and even lobby laws to force the process to become a protection of the data and documents and not just some reason for people to justify their pension cruising laziness.
YMMV and I know not all counties arent this bad but I'd bet a dollar more of them are far worse then people want to believe in their nascent attitude and lack of caring is harmful to the process and the public in general imnsho.
in duplex
When I worked for a county that had a pretty lazy clerk and fearful subordinates, I'd see things like the reception number hand written on the scanned image page(a white page with sharpie) referencing the file or files were in the vault....
This was 2017. I couldn't fathom why this is allowed, nor what you've mentioned above for the cost. It's already paid for by tax payer dollars. They're invoking some random fee based on what?
This is what the NSPS and other organizations need to focus on to train and even lobby laws to force the process to become a protection of the data and documents and not just some reason for people to justify their pension cruising laziness.
YMMV and I know not all counties arent this bad but I'd bet a dollar more of them are far worse then people want to believe in their nascent attitude and lack of caring is harmful to the process and the public in general imnsho.
Here in the seven cities of southeast Virginia, the annual fee for online access is $600 in each city. Virginia Beach is the only one where it can be set up as pay as you go for "copies". Most are on the state information system. 2 cities have their own index. One has 2 different systems depending on age of the records. The fun one in the bunch is the City of Norfolk. If the plat was recorded in Norfolk County, it can be found in Chesapeake. If it was recorded in Princess Anne County, the plat is in Virginia Beach. Old plats in the City of Norfolk be fore annexing of portions of the 2 counties, the plats aren't available online. Fortunately, the survey department at Public Works has all of the plats, surveys and field books in their records scanned.
It has been a fairly common experience while researching to find family historians attempting to research any information about their ancestors they can find. The employees provide them with a short explanation of where to look and what they may or may not find, then turn them loose. The County normally makes a nice fee for making copies of many things. As I am quite the history buff myself, I may insert myself into the family researchers guidance. This is an outstanding resource for far more than just surveyors. The County citizens are paying for the facility to be there and properly staffed.
Those foolish access fees are what encourage lowballers to survey the deed they are given and nothing more. Why would the potential clients even call certain firms who are paying these fees in numerous locations and must recoup those funds through higher invoices? Those portions of the country that require "business" fees paid to the cities where work may be done add to this problem. Fly under the radar, charge less, but net the same money would seem to be an attractive way to operate.
Not recommending the practice. Just sayin'.
Public records should be available to the public. Period.
Also....it's not like digitization, or records databases, or search engines, are anything new.
I'm continually amazed at how so many organizations (both public and private) seem to have no idea how to implement straightforward, simple plans. Or decide to go with the cheapest solution, and wind up spending triple what they would have spent on the standard solution because the cheap-o solution needs fixing.
Fortunately, the survey department at Public Works has all of the plats, surveys and field books in their records scanned.
Thankfully we had done this same thing. Truly a disaster when it's not.....
😣
