Some have started to index them under the mortgagor's name too but only in the last couple of years and if they can.  I am assuming that these VMs companies are seeing an assignment so they thought I was lying when I first mentioned these cannot be done online. What I mean by if they can is that alot of companies' assignments, releases etc don't even have the mortgagor's name on them - they only state the D/T date and filing information and the legal description - that has to be in your state also - many times these documents are not prepared correctly.  Almost all counties and states have some kind of cross-referencing within the courthouse - not online - only one search capacity - so I would encourage you to talk with the clerks and find out what is available in each of your counties for cross-referencing - some are just plain print-outs of banks which show the legal right next to it so you can scan it faster than the computer if it doesn't have the legal search capacity as narrow as vol/page of plat and lot and block.  By the way, we get literally thousands in our bigger counties of Dallas, etc. (2.3 million people) and guess what we have next to nothing work in almost all counties because they are doing these online and inhouse - now times 2.3 million people by the 99% liability that their online search is wrong.  I would think that the companies performing these searches online without the knowledge of their lenders, etc could be sued for conducting business without proper knowledge and experience of how to properly conduct the search.  I would be interested in hearing from any VMs companies that still think they can conduct searches properly online or from VMs companies that tried it and stop knowing it was very high risk.