1. Collection
Records originate in Texas county clerk record systems, which publish official public records online. We monitor each covered county for newly recorded documents in the estate-related categories we track and capture the recorded document images along with the county's index metadata (recorded date, instrument number, document type, grantor/grantee, and legal description).
2. Classification
County indexes don't use a consistent label for every estate document - a small estate affidavit may be filed as “Probate,” an executor's deed simply as “Deed.” We normalize these into a consistent set of categories: Affidavit of Heirship, Small Estate Affidavit, Affidavit of Death, and Executor's / Administrator's / Personal Representative's Deed.
3. Parsing
Each document is read with optical character recognition and document-understanding models, then parsed into structured fields: the decedent, heirs and distributees and their relationships, the affiant or executor, the property and its address, and the relevant dates. The original page images are retained so every parsed value can be traced back to its source.
Accuracy & limitations
- Authoritative recording metadata (dates, instrument numbers, parties) comes from the county index, not from OCR.
- Parsed details are produced by automated extraction and can contain errors, especially on handwritten or poorly scanned documents. They are a research aid, not a substitute for the recorded instrument.
- A document re-recorded years after it was first executed carries the later recording date; the original instrument date is preserved separately.
- Coverage and freshness vary by county - see Coverage & freshness.
Always verify against the official recorded document before relying on a record for a legal or financial decision.