The Dearborn County Recorder is doing some great work to preserve records and provide greater online access by back-indexing deeds on their computer system and adding access to scanned images of the historical paper indexes.
On the computer indexing side, they have been adding scanned images of older deeds, and indexing them. The most recent batch released covers 1988, so Dearborn now has 37 years of deed history fully indexed and available online. The index for all document types begins in July of 2000, providing nearly 25 years of full document history.
This back-indexing work is an important part of record preservation and access because it is much easier to archive multiple copies of images and index information when it is in electronic form.
Those familiar with local history will know that in 1826, the Dearborn County Courthouse burned, destroying all records stored there. If a similar disaster were to occur today, the County's Recorded Documents would continue to be available without interruption online while rebuilding or office relocation occurred. In addition, full recovery of the electronic records could be done in about one day, so "restarting" the office would be a relatively easy task.
In a related preservation project, the Recorder has scanned the paper index that covers deeds from the year 1903 forward. Now that these records are in electronic form, they are similarly preserved in case of disaster, and as an added benefit, they are now available online through Doxpop's advanced search page.
When you use the images of the paper index, you should be aware that this is a snapshot of the paper index, and any manual corrections or notes made after that snapshot won't appear. Fortunately, these corrections are rare, given the historical nature of the information.
Please join us in congratulating Joyce Oles and her excellent staff for all of the work they have put into both preserving documents and making them more readily available online!
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