It's ridiculous!  Of the seven rural counties I cover in Virginia, only 3 have online records past 1995 or so, how could they even come close to getting a complete two owner.  Only 2 of my counties have all their maps online, so even when we can do a current or 2 owner from the office, we still have to go to the counties to pick up maps.  Judgements are another issue.  There are only 2 counties here where the copies go back 20 years.  All the rest...we have to go to the county and search the index and pull copies. 

And let's not forget, rural counties mean property passed from family to family which generally means a full title.  Or, the one I did last week where the current owner bought the property in 1948.  Everything had to be done in the court.  Considering the mess banks and mortgage brokers made of the past 10-20 years worth of mortgages, you would think they would all have learned their lesson about trying to cut corners in title searching.  Just last week, I had one search with a high DOT on the land only parcel and another search with an assignment filed on a mortgage that has never been recorded.  Both were foreclosure searches.  Idiots!