The New Hampshire Department of Corrections has add an inmate finder at its Web site. Identify inmates using a partial first or last name. A search returns the facility where the prisoner is detained, the birth year, booking number and date, current parole date, type of crime for which they were convicted and the maximum possible term of incarceration.

The National Archives provides links to all the state archives, which sometimes have online indexes of public records that are not at the local jurisdiction’s Web site. While these may be of more relevance to genealogists, private investigators often are charged with developing social histories for criminal defense cases, tracing beneficiaries for real estate matters, rooting out unclaimed assets or developing background on people and companies.

After you get to the state archives site look for a link to online databases or family history records if you don’t see the type of record listed you’re interested in. If the index isn’t online you can review the index and records at the state archive or receive microfilm through inter library loan. The California list of family history records includes:

COUNTY RECORDS 1850-1987. Includes probate court case files, wills, naturalizations, deeds, homesteads, and vital records for 28 counties. Not all records are available for all counties.

MENTAL HEALTH RECORDS* 1856-1972. Records may include registers and case files for Stockton, DeWitt, Modesto, Mendocino, and Sonoma State Hospitals. Some indexes available.

The Delaware Archives house state historical documents and have created an online index of probate files covering the years 1680 -1925. Search by last name, first name is optional, for a list of full names, date and county of filing.

These are not indexes to all the names appearing in the records, but only the names of the deceased for whom the files were created. Contained in each index are the individual’s name, and a date or dates. The dates correspond to the date of the documents within that individual’s file and may refer to a date of the will or to a date for probate to begin. New Castle and Kent County Probates are on self service microfilm available in our Research Room, and Sussex is in the process of being filmed (inquire with Research Room staff for details). Copies of this microfilm are also available for sale.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has an online Wisconsin Name Index to their holdings. Order document images for a fee.

The Wisconsin Name Index includes 150 county and local histories, dozen of professional directories and biographical encyclopedias, more than 60 scrapbooks containing 30,000 obituaries, and selected articles in Wisconsin magazines and newspapers. These publications were indexed by Wisconsin Historical Society librarians between roughly 1870 and 1970 but contain information on individuals from earlier date ranges. You can search the Wisconsin Name Index and purchase full text copies of available items which will be mailed directly to you.

Glance at my prior postings over the last few years for links to other sources.

Its not everyday that the New York Times features a very nice positive article on a couple of New York City private investigators.

There are renting laws in New York City that affect half of the approximate two million rental apartments. Those tenants who are fortunate enough to live in these rent controlled apartments are required to live in their apartment at for least six months per year. They also can’t sublet it without the owner’s permission or charge more than the regulated rent. The landlord can take back the apartment if the primary tenant violates these rules, moves out, or dies unless a family member has already been living in the apartment for at least two years.

Bill Golodner and his partner, Bruce Frankel, both former New York City police detectives, say their firm has handled close to 500 of these real estate type cases in the past year.

News 14 Carolina recently aired a story about Karin Goin who uses regular dogs that she trains rigorously to find missing pets.

“(The dogs) are at least 85 percent of the investigation,” she said. “We are on the dumb end of the leash. We basically follow behind.”
Karin Goin

You can see the newsclip by clicking here.

Search the Puerto Rico Sex Offenders Registry in Spanish or English.

The Nevada Appeal News reports…

The Churchill County Recorder’s Office began in August alerting those who do business with the office, such as title companies, that beginning Jan. 1, Social Security numbers would not be allowed on public documents.

New Hampshire courts are slowly implementing a new case tracking system that will link all of the state courts - in about 3 years. The Supreme Court is still debating which personal identifying details will be masked in the Internet site.

It also will improve public access to court records. For the first time, court dockets _ including the names of the parties, the type of case or criminal charges, and the dates of filings, hearings and decisions _ will be publicly available, going as far back as 1988.

But public access won’t improve immediately. That’s because the Supreme Court is still working on rules governing what records should be available only on paper, what information would be on public computers at courthouses, and what would be on the Internet.

A Virginia legislator is attempting to turn on its head the meaning of trespass, making uninvited forays against the law. SB 1120:

Provides that a person who goes or remains upon residential property or conspires to go or remain upon such property and who knows or reasonably should have known that any resident of such property suffered a substantial personal, physical, mental, or emotional loss, injury, or trauma within the week preceding the entry upon the property is guilty of trespass or conspiring to trespass, regardless of whether the lack of permission to enter the property was communicated to him.

AP reports, Va. bill would allow trespass charges against reporters.

Could this apply to private investigators attempting to interview a complaining witness?

Find out which government records are available to the public in each state in the revised, Open Government Guide , produced by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The access to public records for private investigators, lawyers or journalists is more often than not the same as that accorded to the unwashed masses. Some special privileges are reserved to the media in accessing voter registration records in California. We also have a toothless law that specifies that a “court-appointed licensed private investigator shall have the same rights and privileges to information as the public defender and the public defender investigator…” But which agency provides the electronic access to court and DMV records? Next time you’re working a criminal case and want mug shots, take a copy of PC 987.2(f) with you. If your county Sheriff’s office has given them to the public defender it’s required to turn them over to a private investigator.

The National Institute of Justice publications, Digital Evidence in the Courtroom: A Guide for Law Enforcement and Prosecutors and Investigations Involving the Internet and Computer Networks, released this month, are available online.

Search by personal or business name across all Utah government indexes of historical documents that are online. The Utah death index with death certificate images is available from 1905 to 1954.

If you’ve had trouble reaching the Yolo County, California Court Web site it’s not an error on your part. As often happens, the county relocated to a new URL without notification to the online community.

A federal bill to establish a nationwide drug dealers registry has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. HR 304, quaintly entitled, Clean Town Act of 2007, if enacted, would set forth “guidelines and incentives for States to establish criminal drug dealer registries and to require the Attorney General to establish a national criminal drug dealer registry and notification program…” From the point of view of a private investigator this would be another research tool, but for the criminally charged it’s another nudge toward a public national criminal offender database.

Other introduced federal legislation would expand on the recently enacted Telephone Records and Privacy Act of 2006. S.92, Protecting Consumer Phone Records Act would make it unlawful to “acquire or use the customer proprietary network information of another person without that person’s affirmative written consent…”

Continuing on the consumer privacy theme Senator Feinstein has submitted two bills related to the release of personal information. S. 238, concerns the misuse of Social Security numbers; S. 239 would “require Federal agencies, and persons engaged in interstate commerce, in possession of data containing sensitive personally identifiable information, to disclose any breach of such information.” Text is not yet available for either measure.

The Texas legislature is entertaining a number of bills that could impact private investigators. SB 123 would block release of certain personal information on minors; SB 48 would redact social security numbers from county public records; HB 73 prohibits acquisition of telephone records without the subscriber’s permission; HB 87 is similar to a bill private investigators and the motion picture industry defeated in California that would have prevented anyone from acquiring personal information in a business record.

Indiana House Bill 1046 will prohibit “a person from transmitting false or misleading caller ID information through a caller ID service.”