Where our data comes from
Every notary listing on FindNotaryNearMe.org is derived from official state commissioning records. In the United States, notaries public are commissioned by a state authority, most commonly the Secretary of State, and the resulting roster is a public record. We aggregate these rosters from the state agencies that maintain them, including Secretary of State offices, Departments of State, and equivalent commissioning bodies.
We do not resell third-party data, we do not purchase lead lists, and we do not accept paid inclusion in the core directory. Listings exist because a real commission record exists.
How we collect it
Where a state publishes its notary roster through an official open-data portal or public API, we ingest from that source. Where a state provides a public search tool, we retrieve records respectfully, honoring rate limits and robots directives. Collection is done in small, documented passes per state, one state at a time, so the process is auditable and reproducible at each annual refresh.
What we include and what we filter out
We include active, currently commissioned notaries. We filter out records whose commission has expired as of the most recent refresh. When a state exposes flags for Remote Online Notarization (RON) authorization or electronic notarization, we preserve those flags so users can filter for them.
Some states publish full contact details including street address, city, and phone. Other states publish names and commission numbers only. For states in the second group, we still provide state-level content and resources, but we do not invent contact data we do not have.
Refresh cadence
State notary rosters change constantly as new commissions are issued and old ones expire. We refresh each state roster on an annual cycle, with ad-hoc updates when a state publishes a significant change or when a user reports an issue. The "last updated" date shown on each state page reflects the most recent successful refresh for that state.
Quality checks
Each ingest runs through deduplication on commission number and commission state, expiration filtering against the current date, and normalization of city and county fields so listings group cleanly on city and state pages. We spot-check a sample of each refresh against the source agency to confirm that records match before replacing the prior dataset.
What we do not claim
A listing on this site confirms that a person held an active notary commission in the source record at the time of our most recent refresh. It is not a referral, a recommendation, or a professional endorsement. It is not a guarantee of availability, pricing, or scope of service. Before a notarization, we encourage users to confirm that the notary is currently commissioned and available through the notary directly or through the state commissioning authority.
Corrections and removal requests
If you are a notary listed on this site and you want your listing corrected or removed, please contact us. We honor removal requests from commissioned notaries regardless of whether the underlying record remains public at the source. Corrections to details like city, phone, or RON authorization are welcome and are applied on the next refresh.
If you are a member of the public and you believe a listing is inaccurate, please let us know and we will investigate against the source record.
Trust, at a glance
Public records, refreshed on a schedule, deduplicated and filtered for active commissions, with a clear path to correction or removal. That is the whole method. You can read more about the project, explore the directory, or compare notary fees across states.