TN Courthouse Records

Are you setting out in search of records held at a Tennessee courthouse? Do you know which kind of TN courthouse you need to approach?

In Tennessee, there are four kinds of courts with general jurisdiction, and 3 types with limited jurisdiction. Thus, the type of court record you will get depends on the type of court you approach.

Of the four types of courts, any one is likely to have the records you need. You need to also know that there are courts with general jurisdiction: Chancery Courts, Circuit Courts, Probate Courts and Criminal Courts. There are also courts having limited jurisdiction such as the Municipal Courts, General Sessions Courts and the Juvenile Courts.

Type of Records Available at the Courthouse

Circuit courts have general jurisdiction over all criminal and civil cases, and they share the jurisdiction over some case types in certain courts. If there is no jurisdiction where a case must be heard in a certain court, then it is heard in a circuit court.

Criminal courts and circuit courts share the original jurisdiction on all cases that are criminal in nature. Where there is a criminal court, the circuit courts do not have the jurisdiction on criminal cases.

There is shared jurisdiction between the circuit court and the chancery court about such issues as arbitration, adoption, trustee appointments and release, divorce, probate or trustee petitions, property sale proceedings and its distribution and partition, changing of names, issues of paternity and the abatement of any nuisances.

Circuit courts also share jurisdiction on cases of domestic relations with a few general session’s courts. These courts have the jurisdiction to settle any dispute on issues such as will validity and arbitration cases. These courts also enjoy exclusive jurisdiction on cases for citizenship restoration.

Generally speaking, the circuit courts trump all others when push comes to shove in a litigation process. The county clerk’s office is your single best source to track the various kinds of records.

How to Find TN Courthouse Records

All publicly held records, those of births and deaths, marriage and divorce records, criminal as well as police records, driving offenses and financial records are maintained and made accessible for you when you ask for it.

To find a person’s public records, you can use his or her Social Security number which will give you all the information including the present and past addresses, age, occupation, criminal history (if the person has any) and such other information.

Searching the public records of a person by SSN is a simple way to find out information that may be of interest to you. However, most people do not have access to a person’s SSN to check their criminal history.

If you face such a problem, you can still locate other personal background information from several other public record databases on the Internet. This allows you to find out about a person's criminal background online, his/her offenses and even their public violations. You can also go to the public library for copies of publicly held records or visit state websites to access them.

You can also visit the courthouse and approach the clerk to request the record that you need. This can be time consuming as you might have to wait in line for some time. You may also want to call the courthouse and place your request over the phone. You will still need to wait for a while because once your records are found, you will have to wait for them to be mailed to you.

Alternatively, you can use the websites where you can place your request online. Accessing your records on the Internet saves you time and hassles, and this method has become very popular in recent times.

For many years, gaining access to court records was something that only insiders could manage. You needed to have a good lawyer or become a friend of the local court clerk. Luckily that is no longer necessary. It has become much easier today to access the court records that you want.

In fact, the authorities are legally bound not only to maintain the records, since these records are in the public domain, but also to share the information with you. There are a few exceptions, but there are not too many of them.

Here is the information that you can receive from your courthouse records:

•    Age and the sex 
•    The address and phone numbers - current and past 
•    Marriage Records
•    Divorce Records
•    Default Records
•    Police, Courts, Arrest and also Criminal records 
•    Army, Military and Navy records 
•    Business and property records