The Office of the County Clerk touches many peoples' lives in Denton County and across the State.  The County Clerk is the record keeper of most information affecting our lives.  It has been my primary objective since taking office in 1999, to increase your access to the county clerk's office and records, a goal in which I can proudly say has been met.  This goal has now become our method of operation in this office, seeking to increase access and convenience any chance we have.  My office is divided into these three main departments that comprise most of the information that we record and store: real property/vital statistics, civil/probate and the criminal misdemeanor department - adult and juvenile. 

I am proud of the strides made in providing the most efficient and reliable access to our records!  In the real property department, anyone can come into the office and search our indices and images on 24 state-of-the-art computers for the most up-to-date information, all for no fee.  Our land records are also now available on the Internet, too!  Denton County is one of the first counties in the State of Texas to offer these records on the Internet. 

Because of a computer link with the State of Texas, we are able to offer our customers certified copies of their birth certificate if they were born anywhere in Texas, not just Denton County.  For the first time in the history of Denton County, marriage licenses are now automated.  Information is input and licenses are generated by a computer and printed, instead of hand-typed.  Numerous man-hours have been slashed from the process on the input time and the storage/retrieval time for copies.  Finally, access to plats filed with Denton County are now available electronically (in the Denton office only), and can be printed on the same 24" x 36" sized paper as they are filed.  Plat images are not available on-line.  The U.S. Department of State recognizes this office as a passport application receptacle, in which we accept applications for passports and are able to take photos for your convenience, all closer to home. 

Our court records have been electronically accessible via the Internet for some time.  We have however, implemented an imaging system that will greatly increase the efficiency of the entire court system.  Currently, the imaging system is only available within county offices.  The efficiency is a result of images of original court documents being shared, or able to be viewed, by several people in several departments (ie., the probation department, district attorney's office, even a judge on the bench in trial), all without each person requiring the actual court file.  The people within the system that need the clerk's information have access to that information from their desk.  An additional benefit of the imaging system is the integrity of the original documents in the clerk's file remains paramount; fewer times the files leave the supervision of the clerk, fewer incidences of lost/misplaced papers, etc...

Again, I am honored to serve each citizen of Denton County, providing more access to the county clerk's office than ever!  Our records have been automated for the ease of retrieval and security in storage.  The volume of information for which my office is responsible is tremendous.  We have experienced exponential growth and have been able to accommodate this growth primarily through automation and reorganization, of which I am also very proud.  I continually develop and implement ways to make more services available to you with your convenience in mind.