HOW
TO BEST USE THE
RECORDS ACCESS SITE
This is a general guide as to how to best use the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds web records site. This guide, used along with our "Guide To How Names Are Indexed In The Computer", should help you effectively and accurately use our computer system for your title searches.
There is no substitute for reading the directions on the screen of the computer. We attempt to highlight all recent changes and additions to our program, but, a periodic review of the instructions on the screen can save even the most experienced computer user a lot of frustration. This guide will not repeat the instructions on the screens. Its purpose is to give you hints and methods to enable you to use the computer most efficiently and effectively.
1. When searching for an individual enter the last name(surname) first. Then press the TAB key. Then enter the first name(given name).
When searching for a corporation, company, city, state, trust, club or association treat it as one last name(surname). Do not enter anything in the given name field.
2. When searching by name, the less information entered the broader the search. The more information entered the narrower the search. We suggest beginning a name search by entering the LAST NAME ONLY. If you are entering an uncommon name, a long name, or an unusually spelled name Try entering just the first few letters of the name to start the search. By doing this initially you can make sure you will get all the possible listings for your subject. After you scan through the broad list you can then reset the screen and narrow your search by adding a given name.
EXAMPLE: You want to do an index search for John F. Meade.
First enter: MEADE With that entry you get a list of every person or company that has MEADE in first five letters of his/her/its name.
If you first entered: MEADE tab JOHN F
You would only get a listing of people with that exact name and you would miss any entries that did not include a middle initial.
*Reminder: The Lincoln County Registry enters names in the computer as they appear on the original instrument. If the original instrument has a typo, a misspelling, is missing a middle initial, etc., you could miss an important recording if you make your search too specific. Check the Indexing Guide to see how we treat special cases and...Let's be careful out there!
3. When you do want to enter a middle initial for a name just enter it one space after the given name and do not use a period.
4. DO NOT enter titles, such as Trustee, Attorney, Conservator, Administrator, Doctor, Mr., Ms., Mrs., Executor, Jr. or Sr., etc. when searching a name. Just enter the name without a title.
5.
Agencies, divisions, departments of a City, State or the
6. If you only know part of the last name(surname) but all of the first(given) name, you can enter the first few letters of the last name and enter a * and then press the tab key and enter the first name. By putting a * entry at the end of your surname entry the computer will search for all possible names that start with the letters you entered in the surname field that also have the given name you entered.
Example: Anthony Armstrong-Jones. You are looking Anthony Armstrong-Jones but you can only remember the first part of the hyphenated last name and the first name. Type Armstrong* in the surname field, press the Tab Key and then type Anthony in the given name field.
7. Do not assume that you have seen all of the information for your specific search request until you see a message at the bottom of the screen that says:
Last matching name is displayed.
8.
Always
look for a trust even if you are not aware of one being established. Use * after last name Example:
Scott* J Clifford Scott trust