In an effort to combat identity theft, many states have moved birth and death records behind increasingly high walls. While this is good for security, it is a challenge for genealogists and those trying to settle estates. The "online" version of these databases is often just an index, and the actual...

If you are an investor looking for property across a state line, you quickly realize that every county has its own "Register of Deeds" with a different interface. One county might use a modern GIS map, while the neighboring county requires you to search by "Plat Book" and page number. This lack of s...

With the rise of "deepfake" credentials and online scams, verifying a professional's license has never been more important. Whether you are hiring a doctor, a lawyer, or a plumber, you need to know if their license is active and if they have any disciplinary actions. However, these "disciplinary" re...

Finding a loved one or a defendant in the prison system is surprisingly difficult. There is no "National Inmate Search" that covers every jail. You have to know if the person is in a municipal lockup, a county jail, a state prison, or a federal facility. If you guess wrong, youll find nothing. The ...

Its a universal law: government databases are most likely to go down right when you have a deadline. Because many of these systems run on "legacy" hardware, they cannot handle spikes in trafficsuch as when a high-profile court case is filed. For the individual user, this "Server Error 500" can be ...