Ok, many people on the Internet search for "free background checks". Most places that offer free background checks make you pay at some point. I am going to explain how you can do a check for free (for the most part) on yourself or someone else.
Let’s clear the air here, if you are going to be running a background check then please follow all state and federal laws pertaining to them. For example if you are conducting the check for employment purposes then please follow the guidelines of the FCRA. Do not take this lightly as you can get into a whole heap of trouble.
Let’s start with the criminal record check. The best way to do this, as I have said before, is to go through the county courts where the person has lived. If you have the persons last address then check that county and the surrounding counties in that area I will give an example. Let’s say I want to conduct a criminal record check on my daughters new boyfriend and I know that he is from Cleveland, Ohio. I went to http://www.ask.com/ and typed in Ohio County Maps. I happen to know that Cleveland, Ohio is located in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ask.com gave me a good county map of Ohio and from there I can determine the closest counties around Cuyahoga. Check out a copy of the map here http://www.dot.state.oh.us/map1/cntymap.asp .
The reason I want the closest counties to Cuyahoga is because I am going to be checking them for criminal records on our subject as well. Why, you ask? Well because most people that commit crimes tend to do so within their comfort zone, meaning within a certain distance of their house.
So from our example we can see that Lake, Geauga, Summit, Medina and Lorain Counties all surround our target county.
Next we need to figure out what court house we are either going to call or check online. Most courthouses are online these days and you can find a good list of them here http://www.crimcheck.com/freerecords.htm .
Ok, I now have My subjects name, the county he lives in and the surrounding counties of the county he lives in and a list to find the court houses in those counties. Now we need to find out if he has a criminal record. In this instance I used the name Michael Smith. Click the image at the top of this post for the example. As you can see the results all have addresses by them, that is one way to determine that you have the right subject.
Now you can go to all of the other counties on your list and do the same thing. Warning: As you can see from our example there is more than one Michael Smith. Make sure that you have the right subject before you start making accusations or using the results as evidence.
You can even go one step further and check for misdemeanors within the city courts of the counties that your are checking. I would normally just check the city where the subject lives and the county seats of the surrounding counties. If you have comments or questions please feel free to post them here.
I will be covering motor vehicle records and driving records in my next article so stay tuned!
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