Therefore it's imperative to know the person's area of residence for the period during which you want to run your investigation. If you lack this information visit the "How to Locate People" section of this site for ideas on how to determine your subject's present or past location.

For some types of checks, such as criminal records, tax liens, UCCs, motor vehicle records (in some states), and vital records, information is maintained at both the state and county levels; so you'll have to decide whether you want to check at just one of these levels, or both.

The advantage of running your check at the state level is comprehensiveness. For example, in the case of a criminal records check, you'll get results for the entire state. The disadvantage is that state records are sometimes incomplete; counties are occasionally remiss in forwarding records to the state level, or they may make errors in the transfer process. Thus, it's best -- especially when running a criminal check -- to look for records in both the subject's state and county of residence. You may of course also wish to check past states or counties of residence.