David, the "appropriate" records, may be available through another service, or they may need to be attained by an examiner in the field.

Again, it comes down to knowing what you need, and to me, this should always be the case whether working out of 200 year old indicies or working off of a website.

As far as identity thieves and the oversees companies doing searches - I am all for making the websies more secure, and I am even for making the sites accessible only through fees and security checks.

Hell, if they want to go back to the old-school method and I have to go back to working at the Register and the Clerk's Offices, I am cool with that too. But as long as it is available over the Internet, it would be foolish to ignore it and not use it to my advantage and the advantage of the company I work for...