by

Dave Hardin

Public Instruction Officer

During one recent week, the Catawba County Public Information Office received three calls from people wanting to know where to get a birth certificate and one asking about a marriage license. I forwarded all four calls to the same place.

Marriage licenses, birth certificates, and more, are managed by the Catawba County Register of Deeds Office. Register of Deeds Donna Spencer supervises the office, located on the first floor of the Justice Center in Newton. It’s filled with computer terminals, books, maps, ledgers and microfilm.

All those tools are necessary to create, organize and store thousands of records each year. The Register of Deeds Office holds all deeds and deeds of trust (which involve the borrowing of money), maps, rights of way and all records that have anything to do with real estate including foreclosures, restrictions, easements, subdivision surveys, leases, contracts and agreements.

The office also keeps birth and death certificates from 1913 and marriage records that go all the way back to Catawba County’s founding in 1842, as well as records regarding assumed names, affidavits, powers of attorney and separation agreements.

Divorces and wills are found in the Office of the Catawba County Clerk of Superior Court.

This variety of records makes the Register of Deeds Office an active and vital location.  Developers, attorneys and citizens in need of these records are constantly at work there. It’s also an important place for genealogists who use these vital records in their search for someone’s roots.

The new electronic age of computers, e-mail, scanned documents and the internet has somewhat eased the work load on the Register Of Deeds staff. But their job is still complex. Each staff member has specialties, but all must be able to perform any job done in that office.

Computer technology is making the records in the Register of Deeds Office more accessible to the public. An online deed search can be accessed at our web site.  And other records kept in the Register of Deeds Office are being brought online as funds are available.

If you find yourself searching for a birth, marriage, death or land transaction record in the future, or need to create a new one, remember that they may be found at the Register of Deeds Office at the Justice Center in Newton. 

To learn much more about the office, I encourage you to visit their web site.