Does anyone know how to find detailed information on people through public records online?

Question

I want to find a long lost family member and i dont want to have to pay to do so. But why do you have to pay for them? there public records aren't they?

Answer 1

I worked in a PI firm. The records are public in deed, but, it takes PIs years to learn where to look for what.

You may be better off hiring a firm to do the search.

You have lots of online resources, white pages for one, then, you just type "people search" on a search engine and you will get lost of results.

Just for the record, public records are public, not free.

cheers

Answer 2

There are different levels of "public" records. Birth certificates for example are 'public', but they are not open to anyone. Only qualified persons have access. There are other records that you might believe to be public, but they really are not.

As for why to pay anyone to search public records.. the reality is that they do the work, as well as having the skills to know WHERE those records are.  You can spend your gas money to drive to a courthouse 500 miles away, and go through the books there.. at the cost of gas today, a private investigator (or other researcher) might turn out to be quite a bargain.

Answer 3

Ancestry.com may somewhat help. They give you a free trial before you have to pay.

Thanks!