WideNet Search: The CourtTrax Answer for Name Searches in Oregon

The CourtTrax WideNet Search feature finds name variations in the Oregon Court system which were created by the way the name was first entered in their legacy system, OJIN. WideNet Search compensates for a variety of well-documented current and historical data entry errors that can often appear in Oregon party name entries, and which are not addressed within the current OECI eCourts search service.

For example, for 20+ years the OJIN User Manual pointed out that a Defendant’s name for every misdemeanor traffic offense at the Multnomah County Court was entered incorrectly, with a leading space before the first letter of the last name. CourtTrax’s WideNet search algorithms include a recursion, searching the system for the target name as well as adding a space before the last name in the name field for the search.

As well, there exists random Defendant name entries in all counties where a double space was entered between the first and last name, instead of a single space which is the standard data entry convention.  CourtTrax WideNet search algorithms also include a recursion to search for the target name with two spaces between the first and last names to overcome the host data error.

And most especially, the court data records can include numerous variants of apostrophized names. Take, for example, the last name of O’Hara: WideNet Search includes four recursions to search for O’Hara, O Hara, Ohara and O\Hara. So if a user enters O’Hara as the last name, all the results from the other four search variants will also be integrated into the name search results list.

The WideNet search preference is available to all CourtTrax users for their Oregon searches, and can be activated through by following the menu tabs My Account > Case/Name Preferences > Oregon  and clicking the checkbox for WideNet Search.

If you have any questions about WideNet Search, court record access in Oregon, or would like to know about CourtTrax’s other products and services, please contact us at 866-643-7084 or customerservice@courttrax.com