In this state, the judgments, divorces, criminal records, estates, and special proceedings which is foreclosure, adoption, land partitions are all indexed through the State system.  In our county these records are housed in the Courthouse and up until two years ago so was our Register of Deeds office.  Searching was all done in one building but now there is a four block walk or drive to update before each recording or to do a complete title search.

The Clerk of Court's computer system goes back to 1988.  So we can do a 10 year judgment check now without pulling the index books.  If we find a judgment, we check the judgment book and page to see if it has been cancelled of record.  Two years ago, the State came up with the idea of doing away with the Judgment Books and now judgments are recorded in the computer system.  You have to access the newly docketed judgments by the computer or by pulling the file off the shelf.  It is a scary complicated non user friendly system which I don't like the change.  The magistrate court (Small Claims Court) files are not kept past 5 years so eventually there will be a problem with that record keeping process.  When we need one over five years it has to be sent away for which takes a day to get out of storage. 

One can access the Clerk of Court system at any NC courthouse for any county in the state.  I won't explain how it is done for obvious reasons.  However, you can obtain the rights to use the system online at a huge yearly fee, plus a per use per screen fee.  Also, you have to have the right software installed.  The security to tap in this system is the strictest that I have seen.  It took almost White House clearance and a month to get approved. They did a background check on me.  The State knows when I check the system because they bill the owner of the application per use.  An attorney friend included me in his application so I can check it when I do his work.  However, I have to go to the courthouse when something is found or to look at foreclosures and estates.  The adoption files are not online nor are they filed on the shelves in the Clerk of Court. 

As to the military discharge, DD214's, our register of deeds has always had them in a separate department from the land records.  Each NC county is different in this aspect.  Ours are in the vital records department (births, deaths, marriages, and military discharges) and only the index can be seen on line.  One of the counties that I used to search has just gone on line.  They had been primed to go on line for a year when the county officials were told by the Registrar that their county had always recorded the DD214's in with the land records and that she objected to them going out public.  (Probably is a federal law against it but I like this Registrar and know that she wants what is best for her public.  She doesn't like having to go online.)  That county had to esponge the land records of each and every one of the DD214's before they went on line.  I said that I used to search them.  I don't now because I don't trust and don't like their computer system.  I stopped searching them in January when they went on line because the clerks are having to deal with learning this and they have not worked out all of the bugs.  I just don't want to deal with that.  But that county is no longer putting the records in books either so future searching there will be either on the computer in that registry or on the computer in your office.
That's just the way it is.  Surely, other States are this "ADVANCED" with computers right????  We aren't the only Registers of Deeds that have their records totally on computers are we???  I know that Georgetown, SC is just beginning to put theirs on computers but they are still putting them in the books too.