What is a public record? A public record is any legal reference that is kept by, or on behalf of, the state or country. Technically, it includes all such records, including those where open public access is curtailed or not allowed for reasons of security of the State. Generally however, it is used more and more to refer to those records that are available for public viewing for any purpose. Searching a record can reveal a wide variety of information and in normal circumstances should accommodate the informational needs of most people. This is however very dependent on the type of society and its attitude to availability of public information that exists in each individual country. The public record covers such things as court and criminal records, population data, birth records, death records, marriage records, as well as divorce records.

The search for public records has been simplified where it has been made accessible through an internet search. There are now many websites that provide an accessible online format. This new approach has opened a much easier method for gathering important record data. With the availability of these websites, people no longer need to personally visit any records establishments in order to do a manual search, which can be quiet a hassle and also very time consuming. Often when you go to a public record establishment to search for data, you are likely to spend many hours, if not several days, working your through physical records. It can be most tiring to review hundreds of pages of data, trying to identify some small piece of information that will hasten your search.

With an online method, record search is now made much easier. Data is easily obtained in a few seconds, and all that is required is patience, determination, and energy. Compared to the more manual approach to record searching, searching online is far easier.

In any country, public records constitute a very large volume of information. Not least in the area of genealogy records, where the enormous amount of data held on every birth, marriage and death of current and past generations presents a huge problem to anyone trying to trace family lineage. With the latest methods of computerized record searching using the internet, genealogical records are now accessible directly from the home. Traditional means cannot compare to the speed of analysis and cross-referencing capabilities of modern online search. Sometimes lineage itself is not easily determined, especially if the searcher does not have enough knowledge about their family. With online searching, tools are available to help overcome such deficiencies in original knowledge.

Another use of public record search is in background checking. The need for this can arise for many reasons. Many people initiate background checks of their neighbors, friends, or even their fiancées. Now these results are obtained much faster. Some people utilize the organized documents of records to verify credibility and character in others. It is easy for them to search through the record to check, for example, if their neighbor has a criminal or court record. Some women have in fact been known to investigate their fiancé, by verifying if he has any records of a previous marriage.

It must be remembered however, that access to public records does vary depending on the state or country. Some information may not be available in a particular community. Nevertheless, records of people convicted of a crime are usually available. It may also be that people who have records for sexual offenses are made accessible for members of the public.

Thus, public records are no longer simply vast stores of information, hardly used because of being difficult to access and hard to analyze. The advent of online record search has helped open up society's access to information in many ways.