Virginia Courthouse Records

If you are looking for records from a Virginia courthouse, you should be glad to know that there are many options for your search. A Virginia courthouse at the district and state level must maintain these records, and they must be shared with you when you place your request – according to regulations.

Are you wondering how to find these VA courthouse records? The good news is, there are many ways you can do this. We will go into details a little later.

Public records are known to have been kept since before the War of Independence, certainly before 1790. The courthouses were not too well organized then. There were no computers and no Internet. Apart from the technological gap, there was the geographical one. Thanks to the Internet and the digitization of records, it has today become so much better.

Who Can Find Courthouse Records and Access Them?

The right to view records at any courthouse belongs to all citizens with only two general exceptions. There are some specific records which have been deemed confidential by statute, and records that pertain to library circulation may also not be accessed. The good news is, these are still a minority of cases – the records are in the public domain and you can request them generally. In most cases, you will need to mention why you want to access the records and state your relation with the person about whom you want the information.

How to Find Your Courthouse Records in Virginia

The county and circuit courts maintain records on civil and criminal cases. These records are sometimes forwarded to the state, often in summary form. This means that they may not contain all the information that was in the original file. So keep this in mind when you ask for your courthouse VA records. Your purpose after all may not be served if you get it as a summary.

Types of Records You Can Find

As for the information you can access, it includes the names of litigating parties, city, case number, date of birth, trial date, charge, and case disposition in detail for all court cases in the circuit and district courts.

All public records, from records of births, deaths, marriages and divorces to police records, criminal records, financial records and records of driving offenses are available. To find a person’s public records, you can use his/her Social Security number which will give you all the information including the present and past addresses, the occupation and age, information on whether the person has any criminal history or not and others such details.

Searching public records by SSN is a simple way to find out information about a person. However, most people don’t have access to a person’s SSN to check their criminal history. If you have this problem, you can locate other personal background information from various public record databases on the Internet and find out about a person's criminal background online, including his offenses and violations. Or, you can go to the state website or public library where public records are kept and can be accessed.

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

•    Age, Sex and other relevant details 
•    Current & Past Phone Numbers & Addresses 
•    Marriage Records
•    Divorce Records
•    Default Records
•    Police, Arrest, Courts and Criminal records 
•    Army, Navy and Military records 
•    Business and Property records