Missouri Public Records Search

By Ben Kingsley


Missouri has become an open state after the Freedom of Information Act was in place. This has made the public records Missouri generates for its people available for request any time that they need such documents. These documents include, but are not limited to: birth, marriage, death, divorce as well as criminal records.

Most of the family-related files: birth, death, marriage and divorce, are used when doing genealogy research. Such documents are used to prove one's identity. However, each still has its own unique function. For example, death certificates are required when claiming the insurance of the deceased. Marriage and divorce licenses are used when dealing with transactions that would verification about the marital status of an individual. Criminal records, on the other hand are used when conducting a background check. Employers refer to the criminal history of an individual to make sure they have clean records.

All of the public documents of Missouri contain the personal information of the involved individual. The information that can be found would depend on the type of document it is. A marriage license would not contain information about the death of an individual since such information can only be found on a death certificate. Likewise, marriage records would not have details about the divorce of a couple because it only contains information about the marriage itself. Criminal records on the other hand, have details about the crimes and offenses that an individual has committed.

The documents may have been opened to the public but access to it is allowed if the one who requested it is the person on the record or their immediate families. A public document also has the basics of the incident. There is information that remains private only to the person involved. An example would be the reason why the couple decided to separate. This particular information is not displayed on the public divorce record to protect the privacy of the divorcees. Another would be the witnesses of a crime is not indicated on the public document to protect them from potential harm.

Retrieval of each document would follow certain guidelines. A processing fee has to be paid in order to get a copy of any document. Only birth, death, marriage and divorce which have been registered since the year 1909 are available in Missouri. One can go to the office of the Vital Records Section or the county clerk office in order to get family related documents while criminal records has to be obtained at the state's Department of Public Safety. One has to fill out the application form with the necessary information to help in the retrieval process. A mail request can also be sent to get copies of any document needed.

Online retrieval of government public records in the state of Missouri is now allowed. This made the retrieval process easier and fast. A lot of websites now offer to search for the records for you. One has the option to do the search for free or to pay for the search. The cost would be higher than doing the search at the office but people prefer this because of convenience.




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