Access Van Buren County Clerk Records

About the Van Buren County Clerk

The Van Buren County Clerk is an elected Michigan county official. The current clerk is Suzie Roehm. The office runs with a small team, listed as the County Clerk, a Chief Deputy Clerk, and four full-time Deputy Clerks. That team covers a wide mix of duties, from recording a birth to filing a circuit court case. The office sits in the main courthouse in Paw Paw and keeps regular weekday hours.

The Van Buren County Clerk plays two big roles at once. First, it is the clerk for the circuit court, so major civil and felony case files run through this office. Second, it is the county's vital records office, recording and indexing births, deaths, and marriages. The Clerk also handles business names, notary filings, genealogy searches, and elections.

What the Van Buren County Clerk Does

The Clerk's work touches most residents at some point. A couple gets a marriage license here. A family orders a certified death record here. A business owner files a doing-business-as name here. And a lawyer or party in a circuit case relies on the Clerk to keep the court file. The office also runs elections and appoints notaries. Because so many services share one counter, it helps to name the exact record you need when you call or visit.

• Records and indexes births, deaths, and marriages, and issues certified copies.
• Serves as clerk for the 36th Circuit Court and routes case-search links for county courts.
• Issues marriage licenses and provides marriage certificate copies.
• Processes doing-business-as filings, notary applications, and notary service.
• Runs county elections and keeps genealogy indexes for public research.

Van Buren County Vital and Court Records

Much of the Clerk's public search work now starts online. The office hosts an index site where a person can begin a marriage license application and search the marriage index, which runs from 1974 forward. Marriage records themselves reach back to 1836, so older entries may need a counter or mail request. Circuit court case searching runs through a separate case-information page that links the 36th Circuit Court, 7th District Court, and Probate case searches.

Court case routing matters here. The Clerk is the clerk of the circuit court, but online case detail comes from court search links rather than the vital records index. A person looking for a case file, a docket, or a judgment works through the county's case-information page and the wider set of Van Buren County court records. The Clerk still holds the paper circuit file and issues certified copies of court documents on request.

The Clerk's index and application hub is at clerk.vanburencountymi.gov.

Starting online saves a trip when the record is recent. For a copy that must be certified, though, the request still finishes through a form, the mail, or the counter.

How to Request a Certified Copy

A certified copy carries the Clerk's seal and stands up in court, at a passport office, or with an insurer. The Clerk issues certified copies of birth, death, and marriage records to eligible requesters. The steps below cover the common request path.

1. Identify the record and the person named on it, with an approximate date and, for marriages, the names used at the time of application.
2. Pick a channel: submit the online vital record request form, mail a signed request, or come to the counter at 212 E Paw Paw Street.
3. Include the correct fee, which is $15 for the first certified copy and $5 for each additional copy in the same order.
4. Pay by cash, check, money order, or card in person, or by check or money order by mail, and never send cash through the mail.
5. Wait for the copy, and expect an incomplete request to be returned for missing details.

The online vital record request runs through the Clerk's online vital record request form.

Using the online form keeps a request legible and complete. For older records not in the modern index, a phone call to the Clerk can confirm what detail the office needs.

Van Buren County Clerk Fee Schedule

The Clerk posts a full fee list for licenses, certified copies, and office services. Certified vital copies share the same price across birth, death, and marriage records. Business and notary filings have their own set fees. The main items appear below.

Note: The genealogy fee is charged per liber, per name, so a wide search across many bound volumes can raise the cost even before any certified copy is ordered.

Van Buren County Records Request Fields

Not every county record comes from a certificate form. When a request is for administrative, election, or general clerk records, the county FOIA router sends it down one of two paths. The requester first picks which type of records they need, and the router then opens the matching embedded form. The table shows how that router is laid out.

The router lives on the county's Freedom of Information Act request page. Elections and clerk's office records fall under the County Administration path.

Mail and In-Person Requests

The Clerk takes requests three ways. In person, the counter at 212 E Paw Paw Street is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, except federal holidays, and it accepts cash, checks, cards, and money orders. By mail, a marriage certificate request must list the names on the license at application time, the approximate date of marriage, and the fee by check or money order. Online, the vital record request form and the clerk index site cover recent records and applications.

For genealogy and older files, the Clerk keeps indexes for births, deaths, and marriages. Death records begin in 1867 and marriage records begin in 1836, while birth records stay confidential except for authorized people until they are old enough under state rules. A researcher pays $1 per liber, per name, to search these bound volumes, and staff can pull certified copies once a record is located.

When a request does not fit a certificate form, the county FOIA router is the fallback. Elections records and general clerk records are examples the county lists under its administration path. That path does not replace a court file, though. For a case document, the Clerk or the court file is still the source, while FOIA covers administrative county records. Divorce judgments and family cases, for instance, live in the circuit court, so a divorce copy request follows the separate Van Buren County divorce records route.

County Clerk and the Federal Courts

The Clerk keeps county and state court records, not federal ones. When a case belongs to the federal system, its file lives with the federal court, not the County Clerk. Van Buren County sits in the federal Western District of Michigan, in the Southern Division. A search for a federal case, a federal filing, or a federal party starts there.

The district court home is the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

The federal court is a separate records system from the Clerk. Knowing that line keeps a requester from asking the county for a file it does not hold.

The district lists every county it covers, including Van Buren County, on its county-composition page.

Confirming the district first saves time. Once a requester knows the case is county rather than federal, the Clerk and the county courts are the right offices to call.