you would think that travis county, texas- one of the techiest areas in the world- would have an at least adequate records division. most surrounding (read: smaller) counties at this point are light years beyond what travis county offers.
if you visit the office itself, everything is on microfiche, the film is usually in poor condition (which is being kind), half the machines are broken (and unserviceable at this point), and in cases like today you find that one or more of the cassettes you need has vanished for whatever reason.
the process to view the original books is more byzantine than trying to get an appointment with the pope, and the information available on-line only goes back about 15 years. the kicker- today's trip was necessitated because the website required me to upgrade my java viewer. 'cept the new java won't work with their viewer as they won't write the necessary security certificates to make the whole thing kosher.
it's really embarrassing to have a county records department so incredibly inept. the sad part is virtually nobody gives two cow chips because they have zero knowledge. and the county clerk, who is also responsible for elections, has dedicated her entire term(s) (20+ years) to elections. which is doubly funny because we also have one of the slowest and most error-prone elections department in the state.
allright. that's all. just wanted to rant on some sympathetic ears. i was gonna commiserate with a title guy who was there at the same time, but his noggin exploded and his steaming, headless corpse ran out the door.
Welcome to the new way of doing things.
Before they moved the records division out of the courthouse to north Austin, you used to have to go through the metal detectors at either of the two entrances.
Then you had the body cavity search.
[sarcasm]I used to have to leave the zip gun, switchblade and crack pipe in the truck.[/sarcasm]
They had the display boxes of the contraband that was seized by the deputies when people would show up for their court proceedings. Listed below the items were the case numbers of the trials and "convicted". It was rather amusing to me to think that people would carry that stuff around in their pockets. Pipes, weed, pills, knives, small pistols, etc.
I would take out my pocket knife, take off my belt and buckle, and pretty much anything else but the file folders in my hand, and leave them in the vehicle before entering the courthouse. When entering the detectors, I would take off my steel-toed boots and stand there with the holes in my socks for all to see while the deputies would wave their wands over me since I apparently missed something.
Monday and Tuesday of this week, I could not view the records online. Yesterday, the site recommended to update my Java to Version 7, Update 51 (build 1.7.0_51-b13), then it worked.
Good Luck Solo (we still need to visit).
funny, mine won't work with that update. (on chrome or IE)
and yeah, i liked going to the courthouse. especially that time my party chief got cuffed because he forgot to take the joint out from behind his ear...
yeah, i'll give you a shout soon. had 7 proposals come back signed this week. bout to get seriously busy.
I guess hiring the title guy to find and obtain copies of what you want is out of the question??? :-O
well, today it was. because to clear a comment on this plat they wanted me to tie to an original patent corner (for their GIS!). i ended up going through about 30 deeds to ascertain where that patent corner is actually supposed to be- took going back to an 1873 deed- which was horrendously difficult to read between the john hancock-like script and the underexposed microfilm...
I figured out years ago, that there was a correlation between the courthouses which had security systems and those that didn't. Back then, those that had them, needed them. Usually one visit to their County Clerks office would make you realize that due to their policies and difficulty of finding what you needed, a lesser person might mistake it for the post office and wind up "going postal...". Courthouses which had no security systems seemed to be easier to work in (Sabine and San Augustine Counties excluded). Now, they all seem to have security systems (Sabine and San Augustine Counties excluded) and they all seem to need them.
> you would think that travis county, texas- one of the techiest areas in the world- would have an at least adequate records division. most surrounding (read: smaller) counties at this point are light years beyond what travis county offers.
>
> if you visit the office itself, everything is on microfiche, the film is usually in poor condition (which is being kind), half the machines are broken (and unserviceable at this point), and in cases like today you find that one or more of the cassettes you need has vanished for whatever reason.
Actually, I was just in the County Clerk's office yesterday finishing up some research on a project and the subject is fresh on my mind. One of the county employees in charge of records management was evidently making an inventory of the Probate Minutes on microfilm (I can't recall having seen microfiche in the clerk's office, ever). I spoke to him for a bit to see what he knew about the scanning of the old records to actually have the records available and legible. When he spoke in vague, "sometime in the indefinite future" terms, I laid the truth on him. He seemed genuinely surprised to learn that of all the counties I had done research in, from rural to urban, Travis County is without a doubt the worst by far.
I think that the obvious problem is the County Clerk. If she were to visit just about any other county, she'd get a clue as to how things should be. I'd personally recommend Comal County, but she could try Williamson or Bexar.
What the county obviously needs is to hire someone who has a clue and to set up an in-house scanning facility. My priority would be to scan the indices and get started on digitizing them while the rest of the scanning of all the paper records worked backwards.
The first step is to send all the NSFW microfilm reader-printers to the dumpster and leave an empty space so that it is clear that there basically is no way to access any of the old records as a practical matter, not a bunch of junker equipment that looks as if it might work (but never does).
> What the county obviously needs is to hire someone who has a clue and to set up an in-house scanning facility.
It sounds to me like what this county obviously needs first is a new County Clerk.
Demise of the abstractor
> I guess hiring the title guy to find and obtain copies of what you want is out of the question???
Believe it or not, as title insurance companies shift into a casualty model and abandon spending much money to investigate their risk in the first place (i.e. do research), even the title insurers hire surveyors to do their research for them. The urban, high-volume title insurance agents generally no longer have the knowledgeable staff with a deep background in land titles and the specialized knowledge of the area where they write policies that once was a given.
> It sounds to me like what this county obviously needs first is a new County Clerk.
Well, I don't expect the County Clerk to be running the scanner, but I suspect that too few people are writing letters on a regular basis to complain to her and to the County Commissioners who budget funds for the operation of the Clerk's office.
> It sounds to me like what this county obviously needs first is a new County Clerk.
The other practical element to the problem is that in Texas the office of County Clerk is elective. Historically, one of the deputies was elected to replace an outgoing clerk and so was familiar with all of the operations of the office. I think it would be better to arrange to have some branch of the clerk's staff that were technically adept and who understood the records management and storage functions very well without all the other distractions of the clerk's office.
On the other hand, once you've set up a system to tabulate election returns and issue marriage licenses and d/b/a names, what else is there to distract you from the fundamental function of the County Clerk as recorder of deeds?
The world is coming to an end in Kansas as well. Thanks to the passage of a Conceal Carry law a couple years back, the State has dictated to every County that security systems WILL BE INSTALLED AND FUNCTIONING by a date that is now very soon. Every County, except a handful, is squandering huge sums to purchase and install equipment and to hire those poor, poor people (Barney Fife) to sit in front of a monitor all day. We have a few counties with fewer than 2000 population. The hallways look a lot like Death Valley most days now. The handful of counties excepted above are those large-population counties who made the change years ago. My local Courthouse has seven groundlevel entrances. Forget that. Soon there will be only one.
> The other practical element to the problem is that in Texas the office of County Clerk is elective. .... I think it would be better to arrange to have some branch of the clerk's staff that were technically adept....
My expectation is that nothing is going to happen as long as this individual is at the top.
I know it is hard to dislodge incumbents in these offices - because they usually run unopposed. None of the underlings in the office is willing to risk their cushy government job by challenging the boss. After all, if they were the type of go-getter personality that would do so they probably wouldn't be working in the County Clerk's office in the first place. And nobody outside of the County Clerk's office is interested in running.
A friend and coworker of mine once came in second in the vote for Yamhill County Surveyor. Four friends wrote in his name as a joke. The winner - the incumbent, and a good man - kept his job with 47 votes. Probably most of those 47 worked in the building. My point being that if somebody got interested and started knocking on doors he would probably only have to convinced a small number of people to vote for him to get the job. For offices like these which most people don't vote for at all you don't have to get 50% of registered voters to select you, you just need to get one more vote than your opponent. And that may be a very small number, indeed.
Y'all need term limits in Tx.
Just sayin':-O