Research Guide Civil Criminal | Sunlight Research

BRB Publications

Description:

BRB Publications lists resources for locating public records. It links to government agency sites and free online records portals.

Resource Type:

State and Local Records, Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People, Background and Family, Professional History

https://www.brbpublications.com/free-resources/public-record-sites

Background Check Websites

Description:

If you don’t have access to TLO or LexisNexis, use these links to check out alternative options. These are paid resources.

Resource Type:

Proprietary Databases

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People

https://www.intelius.com/

https://www.ussearch.com/

https://checkr.com/

https://www.mysmartmove.com/

https://www.beenverified.com/

Bing Visual Search

Description:

Use Bing Visual Search to search the internet using images instead of words. Using this tool, you can find similar images, products, and pages that include an image.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.bing.com/images/

DOJ National Sex Offender Public Website

Description:

The Department of Justice operates this website, which includes information on registered sex offenders from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Indian Country and U.S. territories. You can search the registries by name and by zip code or address radius for regions that provide geographic data. The Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) also maintains a list of links to each registry in the United States.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

https://www.nsopw.gov/

https://www.nsopw.gov/all-registries

Database for UCC Filings

Description:

These databases provide access to Universal Commercial Code documents, which are standardized records of business transactions and are a good source of information regarding debts, loans, payments and asset transfers.

Resource Type:

State and Local Records

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People

https://www.nass.org/business-services/ucc-filings

Delaware Court of Chancery

Description:

The Delaware Chancery Court is a specialized court that hears disputes over the internal affairs of Delaware companies. The court’s expertise is one reason that businesses from all over the country and the world incorporate in Delaware. Particularly for any individual who has been associated with a Delaware company or other publicly traded company, it is a good idea to search for any cases naming them in Delaware Chancery Court.

Resource Type:

Proprietary Databases

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People

https://courtconnect.courts.delaware.gov/cc/cconnect/ck_public_qry_main.cp_main_idx

Federal Audit Clearinghouse

Description:

Use the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC) to search for audits of federal grants connected to individuals and their companies.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Professional History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People, Personal Finances

https://www.fac.gov/

Federal Bureau of Prisons

Description:

This database includes both currently incarcerated and released inmates. For any inmate identified, look for the corresponding criminal cases in PACER.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/

Ferretly

Description:

Ferretly is a paid research tool that aggregates social media activity from an individual’s accounts on different platforms.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.ferretly.com/

Findmypast

Description:

FindMyPast is a genealogy website that collects certain archival records. Using its advanced World search, researchers can collect information on an individual, their family or their connections by name, location and types of records. In addition to birth/death and family history records, FindMyPast has some historical professional and educational records archived.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://search.findmypast.com/search-world-records-in-education-and-work/and_schools-and-education

Getty Images reverse image lookup

Description:

Getty Images search allows you to reverse image search through Getty’s news, celebrity, and sports coverage, along with stock images in their archive.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People

https://www.gettyimages.com/

Google Advanced Search

Description:

Google Advanced Search uses Boolean operators, which allow you to search by including, excluding or combining exact words or phrases. Google Advanced Search also allows you to narrow results by language, file type, domain and other variables. Check out Sunlight’s Advanced Internet Search Tip Sheet to learn how to find exactly what you’re looking for on the internet. It includes a comprehensive list of basic and advanced search operators, search tips and strategies, and more.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Google Dataset Search

Description:

Google Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. You can use a simple keyword search to discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the internet. For instance, a search for ‘politicians’ will return databases including Work With Data’s Politicians from the United States list and GESIS’ extracted Politician data from Wikipedia and DBPedia.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/

https://blog.google/products/search/discovering-millions-datasets-web/

Google Fact Checking

Description:

Google Fact Check Explorer combines the work of fact checkers, journalists and researchers by aggregating fact checking and misinformation reporting from outlets and agencies around the world. You can search by topic or by people connected to a fact- checked issue. You can also upload photos in the “search fact checks” bar to see fact checks related to an image and when it first appeared online.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://toolbox.google.com/factcheck/explorer/search/list:recent;hl=en

Google Image Search

Description:

Google Image Search allows users to search for images by keyword or any of Google’s advanced search parameters. It also allows for reverse image searches using images and links.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://images.google.com/

Google Scholar

Description:

Google Scholar is an academic journal and patent search engine. It provides a comprehensive search of scholarly journals, databases, preprint servers and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) archives.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://scholar.google.com/

Law Enforcement Public Record Requests

Description:

Public record requests to law enforcement agencies in the jurisdictions where an individual has lived can identify police reports naming the candidate that did not result in charges and are therefore not documented in county case indexes. Agencies can also provide otherwise unavailable details on incidents that did result in charges. The same is true of records on calls for service, or calls to 911 requesting service at the individual’s address. In any given jurisdiction, there will generally be a municipal or county police department – sometimes both. There will also generally be a county sheriff’s office, which is distinct from the county police. At the state-level, there is generally a state police force, often called a state highway patrol or state troopers.

Resource Type:

State and Local Records

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

Link will vary depending on jurisdiction.

LexisNexis

Description:

LexisNexis provides access to information available through public records and a broad collection of media, much of which would otherwise be behind a paywall. It also has an advantage over Google in that its search function returns any documents that match search terms, whereas Google’s algorithm may suppress unpopular results that are nevertheless valuable for research. If an individual has had a long career in politics or other closely watched industries, there may be a volume of coverage that makes it impossible to review every “hit” naming the candidate in LexisNexis. In these cases, you will need to design search threads to return more limited sets of documents. For example, a search for key controversial search terms might look something like: FIRST NAME /2 LAST NAME AND (CORRUPTION OR FRAUD OR CONTROVERSY OR MISCONDUCT). Like TLO, LexisNexis is a secondary source, and anything significant in a report must be verified independently. LexisNexis data should only be used to identify leads for further investigation but never as an authoritative source itself.

Resource Type:

Proprietary Databases

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Professional History, Political History, Associated People, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

http://lexisnexis.com

Local and State Inmate Locator Databases

Description:

Counties and states vary widely in the public availability of inmate and arrest records. Whereas the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator includes both current inmates and released inmates, many state and local databases include only currently incarcerated inmates. Find the available resources in the jurisdictions where the candidate has lived, and search for any arrest or inmate records. Generally, a county or city jail is operated by the county sheriff or local authority, and a state prison system is operated by the state department of corrections or equivalent authority.

Resource Type:

State and Local Records

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

Link will vary depending on jurisdiction.

Mugshots.com

Description:

mugshots.com provides mugshots, details on the booking of suspects into jail and other content about crimes and arrests. You can narrow search results by state and county.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

https://mugshots.com/