Public record research has its limitations when it comes to researching your subject's private life. Much financial and medical information, for example, is considered private in the United States and is protected by law. Even so, many clues to your subject's lifestyle can be legally gleaned from public records as part of your background check if you know where to look. 

Following are some sources commonly used by private investigators and information brokers. If these fail to provide the information you need, you may wish to consider the use of personal interviews and/or surveillance, as detailed below. 

1. DMV records can provide a quick and easy peek into someone's lifestyle, possibly revealing citations or arrests for alcohol or drug use while driving, or frequent accidents or tickets. Vehicle registrations will provide information about the subject's vehicle or vehicles. Traffic tickets can be quite informative (they can be viewed in the country courthouse); tickets provide full name, address, date of ticket, tag number, year-make-model of vehicle, driver license number, subject's date of birth, place ticket was issued, and reason for the citation.

2. Civil litigation can offer you a wealth of personal lifestyle information on your subject. 
• Divorces. Testimony and property settlement agreements and sometimes even private investigator's notes will be found via divorce files; often even the most personal details of an individual's life are revealed in these cases. 
• Personal injury lawsuits. These records will document whether your subject has a history of personal injury claims or other types of pertinent legal actions; these suit files usually contain extensive depositions as well as financial information. 
• Financial litigation. Excellent source for business background investigations because these files contain detailed documentation regarding your subject's business or professional history from creditors. 
• Fraud claims. Finding your subject has been sued for fraud is, at the very least, a red flag regarding his character! Court records will provide the names of witnesses, coconspirators, and parties who were defrauded (and who will no doubt be more than willing to talk to you about your subject). 
• Bankruptcy. This federal action can provide you with a detailed bankruptcy petition from your subject, as well as a list of his assets and creditors at the time of the filing. 
3. Criminal records. If you discover that your subject has a criminal record, his files, which are public information, can provide a great deal of information about his past lifestyle, his assets, and his known friends and associates. Documents to look for include the statement of the criminal charge, the indictment statement, the pretrial information report, the conviction statement, incarceration information, and the probation or parole officer's report. (Probation and parole officers, as well as bail bondsmen, should be kept in mind as possible interviewees regarding your subject's background check and personal life.) 

     Also, you may wish to contact the local police department in your subject's area and ask for an "incident report," that is, a listing (if any) of police visits to his address. 
4. Employment Associations and Licensing boards often have detailed applications and records on their members and licensees, including records of any complaints filed. 
5. Social Associations not only reveal something of your subject's personal interests but may be willing to reveal information about him or put you in touch with friends of his whom you can talk to. Need a reference source for associations? Try the Directory of Associations, Gale Press, available at most public libraries. 

     Another possible source to consider is school and college alumni associations. For a more complete listing of alumni, you may wish to go directly to a college's web site. 
6. Internet snooping. Embarrassingly for many of us, virtually all of our comments posted to public Usenet forums are indexed by our screen names and email addresses and open to public view via Google Groups. (So, for that matter, are the comments of others, made about us.) Also, try putting his name into a good search engine like Altavista.com to see if it returns anything useful, such as a reference to a personal web site of his. Finally, run his name through a couple news databases like newspapers.com and newslink.org to see if he's been mentioned in the news recently. 
7. An often-used technique is to call his local police department or sheriff's office and ask for an "incident report" (also called an "address report") on his address. If this is available, and in most jurisdictions it is, it will tell you what if any police-related incidents occurred at his address (i.e., a report should be available for any incident in which police were summoned to his address or called regarding something allegedly occurring at his address).
8. Consider running one of our fee-based due-diligence background check reports, called E-BackgroundCheck.  It will provide a great deal of general background info which you can use as a basis for further research.