About the plan
Because the majority of permanent county records are paper, the archival team is working to digitize and physically encapsulate these records to protect them from theft, loss and damage.
The records archive plan also allows residents to access images and historical documents online. County documents include court cases, marriage records, wills, deeds, and tax and election records, County Clerk Nancy Rister said.
The archival department pays for record preservation using archive fees, a maximum of $10 imposed on an entity or individual for recording or filing public documents in the County Clerk’s Office other than court records.
The update
The archival team continues to work on preserving probate records, a project that should wrap up by the end of the year, Rister said. These public records show how the probate court manages a deceased person’s estate to ensure debt payment and distribution of assets.
Images of all probate documents through 1984 are complete, and the remaining 10,850 probate cases will be complete by December, according to county documents.
Currently, the County Clerk's Office operates out of a building at 405 Martin Luther Jr. King St. Because of the volume of permanent documents, storage space is becoming an issue, the 2025-26 archive plan states.
What’s next
The County Clerk’s Records Division, as well as other county operations, will move into the new Williamson County Administration Building next year. The 120,000-square-foot facility is located on an 170-acre tract of land near Southwestern Boulevard and SE Inner Loop in Georgetown.
“Because we're stuck in so many little closets, it's hard to know what we haven't done yet,” Rister said. “So when we move, we're hopeful ... in this large research library, we'll be able to use the storage and get all the books that we've done out there.”
