Pennsylvania, county records

Dauphin County, Pennsylvania Public Records

Find the right office in Dauphin County. Court cases, deeds and parcels, sheriff and jail records, vital records and county filings, each linked to the office that keeps them.

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Most requested Dauphin County records

Every card below goes to the government office responsible for that record. Use the category buttons to narrow the list.

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Showing 12 official sources

Official

Vital records

Dauphin County Birth Records

Dauphin County Birth Records, the office that issues these certificates, with the application, identification and fee rules it publishes.

pa.gov
Open official site Dauphin County Birth Records
Official

Police & jail

Dauphin County Adult Probation

Dauphin County Adult Probation, with the adult and juvenile supervision information the department publishes for the county.

dauphincounty.gov
Open official site Dauphin County Adult Probation
Official

Property records

Dauphin Recorder of Deeds

Dauphin Recorder of Deeds, the office that records deeds, mortgages and land documents, with its index and copy rules as published.

dauphincounty.gov
Open official site Dauphin Recorder of Deeds
Official

Police & jail

Dauphin County District Attorney

Dauphin County District Attorney: County prosecutor, investigation and prevention of crimes, on the official site of the office that keeps it.

dauphincounty.gov
Open official site Dauphin County District Attorney
Official

Vital records

Division of Vital Records Death Certificates

Division of Vital Records Death Certificates, the office that issues certificates for Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, with the application, identification and fee rules it publishes.

health.pa.gov
Open official site Division of Vital Records Death Certificates

Everything else, organized

More official Dauphin County record sources

35 more Dauphin County sources not listed above.

More county sources

Local record guide

About public records in Dauphin County

County profile

Dauphin County at a glance

State
Pennsylvania
County seat
Harrisburg
Population
286,401
Area
558 sq mi
Founded
1785
Cities and towns
14

Dauphin County offices and records

Sheriff & Law Enforcement. Dauphin County Sheriff's Office is responsible for law enforcement in the unincorporated areas of Dauphin County. Notable divisions within the sheriff's office include the K-9 unit and the warrant division, which are integral to its operations.

Police Departments. Dauphin County is served by several law enforcement agencies, including Dauphin County Sheriff's Office and municipal police departments such as the Harrisburg Bureau of Police, Lower Paxton Township Police Department, and Derry Township Police Department.

Law Enforcement & Arrests. Dauphin County Sheriff's Office, located at Dauphin County Courthouse, 101 Market Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101, serves civil process, provides courthouse security, and operates warrant services throughout Dauphin County. Inmate information for Dauphin County Prison, located at 501 Mall Road, Harrisburg, PA 17111, can be accessed through the prison's dedicated phone line at or through Dauphin County website's corrections section, which provides an inmate lookup tool where the public can search by name or booking number. Derry Township and Steelton Borough have municipal police departments listed in the county directory of departments with crisis-intervention-trained officers.

Arrest Records. They are maintained by the arresting agency, primarily the County Sheriff's Office and municipal police departments.

Building permits, zoning approvals, and occupancy permits in Dauphin County are issued by individual municipal building code offices, as Pennsylvania delegates these functions to local governments. The City of Harrisburg Department of Building and Housing Development (717-255-6472) handles permits within the capital city, while other municipalities maintain separate building code departments. Property tax records are maintained separately by Dauphin County Assessment Office, located at 2 South Second Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101 (phone: 717-780-6130). Tax bills and payment information are handled by Dauphin County Tax Claim Bureau (phone: 717-780-6140). For centralized access to Pennsylvania vital records statewide, the Division of Vital Records, Pennsylvania Department of Health, 101 South Mercer Street, Room 401, New Castle, PA 16103 (phone: 724-656-3100), maintains records dating back to 1906.

Abandoned mine records

Old mine workings in Dauphin County

Where the workings are, and the office that holds the mine maps.

From the old mine records

What is on record in Dauphin County

Old mine sites
7
Past producers, now closed
7
Producing when recorded
5
Processing plants, not workings
1
Main minerals
Iron; Dolomite; construction sand and gravel
Holes drawn on the old survey maps
59
Shafts and tunnels
3
What they are
quarry, gravel pit, quarry - limestone, mine shaft
Maps surveyed
1947 to 1998
Records behind them
74 records for 72 sites, the rest are the same working written down more than once

Is an old working under a property here?

The mine records hold 13 mine sites inside the county: 7 past producers, now closed, 5 sites producing when the record was made, 1 processing plant, which is not a working; the old survey maps add 59 holes drawn inside the county, 3 of them shafts or tunnels. The minerals the records name are Iron; Dolomite; construction sand and gravel.

A point in either file is a location, not a property line: the sheet shows the opening on the surface, not the rooms under it. The record that shows what runs under a parcel is the mine map. The OSMRE National Mine Map Repository holds scanned underground mine maps and answers requests for a named mine or an area. DEP has an address lookup for mine subsidence risk at gis.dep.pa.gov/msiRisk where you enter a street address: if the site falls in a gray Underground Mining Area it is over or near a known mined area. The PHUMMIS inventory of historic underground mine maps sits at www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/Phummis and is linked from the DEP Act 54 maps page.

Lebanon County Perry County Cumberland County Hershey Harrisburg Colonial Park Linglestown Gratz Paxtonia Middletown Steelton N 20 miles
Dauphin County: the boundary from the Census Bureau, and one dot for each old mine or hole on record inside it. The purple dots come off the old survey maps and the darkest of those are shafts and tunnels; the red, green and orange ones are mine records. The small open circles with a name are the towns and the pale shapes around the edge are the neighbouring counties, both from the Census Bureau. Hover a dot for its name.
Pennsylvania mine map and abandoned mine records
Named workings recorded in Dauphin County (15 shown, 57 unnamed on the map)

Dauphin County lies on the edge of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region coal field and the coal there is anthracite, worked underground in many places. The two federal files record a shaft, an adit or a deposit where one was drawn on a survey sheet or catalogued as a site; neither file carries the outline of the workings, so the counts above are not the measure of what was mined under this county. The record that shows it is the mine map, held by Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas (DEP, hosted by Penn State) and linked below.

Pennsylvania abandoned mine maps ranks every county and town in the state by the workings recorded inside it, names the office that holds the mine maps, and says what to do if the ground moves.

Disclaimer: The mine information here is for general information only. Old mine records can be incomplete, outdated or wrong, and finding nothing here does not mean there is nothing there. Check with the mine map office named here before you rely on it, and have a qualified engineer look at any ground you are worried about. PublicRecordCenter.com assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions, or consequences arising from the use of this information.

Labor Department file

Wage and hour cases in Dauphin County

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division closed 392 investigations in Dauphin County since fiscal 2005 and recorded $5,084,039 in back wages agreed for 4,252 workers. The county is the one the Census Bureau puts each employer's ZIP code in. Snapshot of April 22, 2026; a case here is a finding by the Division, not a court judgment.

Investigations closed
392
Back wages agreed
$5,084,039
Workers due back wages
4,252
Civil money penalties
$432,350
Employers on the record
277
EmployerCityCasesBack wagesWorkers
Keystone Peer Review Organization, Inc.Harrisburg3$1,209,639280
PrimeCare Medical Inc.Harrisburg2$281,681276
Spring Creek SNF LLCHarrisburg1$230,955173
Creative Home Care, LLCHarrisburg1$192,986224
AA to ZZ Child Care and Learning Center, Inc.Harrisburg9$131,500205
Commonwealth of PAHarrisburg8$131,26128
Prime United LLCHummelstown1$104,33283
Cheung Enterprises, LLCMiddletown7$102,989291
Rydbom Express, Inc.Middletown2$97,55720
Donald C. Donagher Jr. Inc.Harrisburg1$82,986303
Browns Building Services LLCHarrisburg1$73,0009
ACS Consultants, Inc.Hummelstown1$54,297103
Diaz Transcription ServicesHarrisburg1$51,90345
39 Ventures Management, LLCHarrisburg1$51,053128
Mobile Support Inc.Harrisburg9$50,56453
Pittsburgh Glazing Systems Inc.Middletown1$50,44822
Wharton Financial Advisory PartnershipHarrisburg2$48,93534
Direct Building Services LLC.Harrisburg1$48,56738
Harrisburg News Co.Harrisburg1$40,98016
Appalachian Brewing CompanyHarrisburg5$40,24735
Vaikai Hospitality IncHarrisburg1$39,09610
God's Little Angels Day Care, LPHarrisburg2$36,17513
Information Network Associates Inc.Harrisburg2$36,00741
GreenLoop IT CompanyHarrisburg1$34,24866
Best Friends Day Care Center LLCHarrisburg3$34,20365

The 25 employers with the most back wages agreed, of 277 on the Dauphin County record; 91 employers have a page of their own and open from the table, the rest show their whole record here. The 252 more with smaller records are on the Pennsylvania wage theft records page, whose search answers for every employer in the state.

Dauphin County land research: historical books, party names and mortgage releases

Check the collection before choosing a date filter

The Recorder describes online deeds and miscellaneous documents from 1785, with mortgages from 1979. It also points to the Alpha Index for older deed and mortgage indexing. Those statements describe different record series and search tools. A missing mortgage image in a modern date search does not settle whether an earlier indexed entry exists. Record the series, year and book reference together before moving from an index to the underlying document.

Use the portal name order and then narrow the result

The party-name search calls for last name followed by first name and illustrates a comma between them. It requires at least three characters and provides date and document-type filters. Start with the person or entity as named in the known instrument, then test reasonable spelling variants. Keep the date interval visible in your notes. A restrictive document-type choice can hide a related release, assignment or other filing indexed under a different category.

Select the book series as well as its number

The book-and-page search distinguishes deed, miscellaneous, official-record and multiple plan-book series. A page number without its book type is incomplete. Copy the entire reference from a prior instrument or index, including any letter attached to the book designation. When tracing a subdivision, the referenced plan can explain a lot designation that is unclear in a name-only result. Preserve that plan reference separately from the deed that cited it.

Use the municipality field as a second search approach

The municipality and comments search provides a locality field alongside document type and recording dates. It can help narrow a broad party-name search, but a locality match does not establish that every result concerns the same parcel. Compare the legal description and recording references before building a property history. If a result points to an earlier instrument, follow that reference rather than assuming the most recent indexed name describes the full chain of documents.

Look for the satisfaction after a mortgage payoff

The Recorder FAQ distinguishes the deed delivered after a purchase from the mortgage satisfaction usually sent by a lender after repayment. The payoff does not create a replacement deed. For research, look for the satisfaction and compare the mortgage reference it identifies. If the expected release is missing, keep the original mortgage identifier available when asking about the record. A lender statement and a recorded satisfaction answer different parts of the inquiry.

Read the portal coverage indicator before treating a recent absence as meaningful

The live search interface displays a verified-through date. Capture that displayed boundary with the date of your search when investigating a recent filing, because the indicator changes as records are processed. Do not turn a temporary portal snapshot into an enduring statement that every recent instrument is searchable. The office remains the custodian of its official records, and the Pennsylvania records guide connects this local land inquiry with court, archive and state-agency systems.

Where to go

Dauphin County offices that hold the records

Each office below was read on its own site. A field the office does not publish is left out rather than filled in from a directory.

Dauphin County Recorder of Deeds

Deeds, mortgages, historical indexes and recorded-document copies.

Address
Courthouse Room 102, 101 Market Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101
Phone
717-780-6560
Hours
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Office page: dauphincounty.gov

Straight answers

Dauphin County public-records FAQs

Open only the answer you need.

Where can I find mugshots or booking photos in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Booking photos are kept by the agency that made the arrest, such as the Dauphin County Sheriff or a city police department in Dauphin County. Ask that agency for its record.

How do I get a criminal background check in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

The Pennsylvania criminal history record comes from the Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History (PATCH). Run a name based PATCH check online at epatch.pa.gov or send a mail in PATCH request. Fee: $22.00 for each PATCH check; online card payments add a 2% fee.

How can I look up sex offenders in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Search the Pennsylvania State Police Megan's Law Website, or every state at once on the National Sex Offender Public Website run by the U.S. Department of Justice.

How do I register to vote in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Register with the county voter registration office (county board of elections) or through the Pennsylvania Department of State. You can also register online with the state online registration. You must register at least 15 days before the election.

How do I look up property records in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Deeds and other recorded land documents in Dauphin County are kept by the Dauphin County recorder of deeds. Property values are set by the county assessment office, and tax bills come from the local elected tax collector; county treasurer in some counties. Source: official state page.

How do I get a birth or death certificate in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Certified birth and death certificates for Pennsylvania come from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Vital Records. The Department of Health runs six Vital Records public offices across the state for in person requests. Online through VitalChek at mycertificates.health.pa.gov, the state's only authorized vendor, by mail to Division of Vital Records, Birth Certificate Processing Unit, PO Box 1528, New Castle, PA 16103, or in person at a Vital Records public office. Fee: $20 for each birth certificate; online orders add a $10 processing fee.

How do I find business license records in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania?

Business entity filings are searched with the Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. There is no general business license that all Pennsylvania businesses must obtain; licensing depends on the business activity and location, and owners contact their locality about local business licenses.

Do Dauphin deed and mortgage images have the same stated starting year?

The Recorder coverage statement lists deeds and miscellaneous documents from 1785 and mortgages from 1979.

Where does Dauphin direct research in older alphabetical indexes?

The Recorder instructions identify the Alpha Index for deed indexes and the mortgage index.

What name order does the Dauphin search illustrate?

The name-search help uses surname followed by given name, with a comma in its example.

Why does a Dauphin book-and-page search need a book type?

The form separates deed, miscellaneous, official-record and plan-book series. Identical numbers can refer to different series.

Can I narrow a Dauphin search by municipality?

The municipality/comments interface offers that field together with document-type and recording-date criteria.

Should a paid-off Dauphin mortgage produce a new deed?

The Recorder explanation points to a mortgage satisfaction after payoff, while the deed relates to the property purchase.

Where is the Dauphin Recorder research counter?

The office listing identifies Courthouse Room 102, 101 Market Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101; telephone 717-780-6560.

What hours does the Dauphin Recorder publish?

The office FAQ lists weekday service from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., subject to holidays and special closures.

Same county

Cities, towns and neighboring counties

Use the city page when a record was created by a municipal police department or city office; use the county page for courts, deeds, vital records and jail custody.