How do the “people search” sites that advertise “find marriage, birth, etc. records” for an individual get that information en masse? Is it universally available for every state in the U.S.? Do these companies just go to your friendly neighborhood county office and demand a database of all county records?
Pretty much.
And it isn’t so much of a demand as it’s a request. Public records are public records, and open for the asking. So instead of going down to the county records office all the time to do manual searches, a few bright bulbs got the idea to probably pay some students to spend their Saturdays recording all the public data into databases. In turn these bright bulbs put the databases on line and offer them up to anyone willing to pay for the service. Of course, since many governments have moved into the computer age themselves, one need only buy the disk direct from the records office of all the new data entered in just the last week, month, year, etc., and add it to their already existing on line database.
For example, there is one person who spends all their free time writing to every local, state and federal agency in their state using FOIA requests and obtaining the names, titles and annual salaries of the respective local, state, and federal employees in their state. You don’t believe me? See for yourself!
I doubt if they hire people to do legwork IRL. All that information is available through LexisNexis.
Property tax databases, vote registration databases, court record databases, vital records databases, telephone directory databases, change of address databases . . .