Missouri Courthouse Records

Are you searching the Internet for Missouri courthouse records? You are in luck because the court records from the state are now available on the Internet. You will find the records that you want at the state website, as well as at various private websites.

Accessing Missouri Courthouse Records

There was a time when court records and records of other vital statistics were maintained as hard copies in files. Thankfully those days are now a thing of the past. They have now been digitized and are maintained in central databases to make them available on the Internet. This is why they can so easily be retrieved and presented to you when you place a request.

You no longer need to hire a lawyer to access the record that you need or befriend someone at the clerk’s office. The authorities are legally obliged to maintain the records and share the information with you when you ask for it. Though the records are in the public domain and can be shared, you should know that there are some exceptions. What this means is that in some cases they cannot be made accessible.

How to Find Courthouse Records in Missouri

How can you access the records maintained by the Missouri courts? The procedure is simple enough. All these records are available over the Web. Provided that you apply for the specific information in the appropriate format, they can be delivered to you quickly.

Here are some other ways to find the relevant courthouse records:

•    You can visit the clerk at the courthouse and place your request personally. You should know that you might have to stand in line for a while.
•    You can call up the courthouse and apply over telephone for your court record. Here too there is some waiting period because once your record is found, it is mailed and you need to wait for the delivery to arrive.
•    You can approach the public library for the public records.

Types of Records You Can Find

Typically, a court in Missouri keeps track of the birth records, death records, criminal records, marriage records, and other valuable public records. These are the records you can find about an individual:

•    Age, sex and other relevant details 
•    Current & past phone numbers & addresses 
•    Marriage Records 
•    Divorce Records
•    Default Records
•    Police, arrest, court and criminal records 
•    Army, navy and military records 
•    Business and property records 

Using Courthouse Records for Background Checks

The focus is now not just checking the criminal background of a person, but conducting a thorough background check. This has become necessary for your safety. When you want to employ someone in your business or someone to take care of your home or children, this becomes an urgent necessity.

Checking the background of a person completely will reveal a lot more information than just the criminal background of that person. You can learn detailed information about that person and this will let you decide whether you can trust that person or not.

Perhaps you are considering joining a company that is not extremely well-known. You might want to check the court records to find out whether the company has been sued by anyone, and if yes, then the reason for the the suit. After all, you have the full freedom to look after your interests.

You can even locate a lost family member or a friend with whom you have lost contact with, thanks to the rich data records that the courthouses of Missouri have at their disposal. Of course, there are certain specified fees that need to be paid if you wish to acquire such legal information.

Fees for Courthouse Records in Missouri

The fee that you need to pay for accessing any particular birth record (for all years after 1910) is $15. Similarly, $13 is the fixed charge for going through the individual death records in Missouri. The courthouses maintain such death records in the Social Security index of the state, so that gaining access to them becomes easy.

If you wish to find any other particular marriage and/or divorce record in the State of Missouri, you need to forward your application to the Clerk of the Circuit Court. In all the counties of Missouri, these Clerks have the authority to provide the public with copies of the marriage/divorce documents.

On the other hand, if your objective is to trace the genealogies of any Missouri-based family, you have to contact the Missouri Health Department, as per the instructions of the courthouses of the state. The forms which are to be used for accessing the Missouri courtroom records are also available online.

Finally, before you start looking for that court record, you need to know that there are several types of courts in the state, and they all store various kinds of information. So you should know which court you need to approach depends on the information you are seeking.