You may use the document search without an account by using the public account. The public account will allow you to search and view document recording information and associated images. To log in using the public account, use the following:

• User Name: public
• Password: public

If certain features don't seem to work you may have your security settings in Internet Explorer too high. You can work around this without lowering your security on other sites by adding http://occlerk.co.otero.nm.us to your trusted sites list. To do this, follow these steps:

1. From within Internet Explorer, open the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2. From the Internet Options dialog, select the Security tab.
3. Select the Trusted Sites icon and click the Sites button directly below.
4. In the field Add this website to the zone: enter http://occlerk.co.otero.nm.us. Ensure that Require server verification... is not checked and click on Add button.
5. Close the Trusted Sites dialog and click OK on the Internet Options dialog.

The system should now trust our server and enable all the features. If you continue to have problems, you may need to adjust the Custom Level section for Trusted Sites to enable ActiveX controls.

Otero County no longer provides online access to death certificates and U.S. military DD-214 forms.

Copies of and information about death certificates can be requested from the New Mexico Department of Vital Statistics in Santa Fe. More information about how to process a request can be obtained from the New Mexico Department of Health website.

For information about how to obtain a DD-214 form, call the Otero County Clerk's Office at (575) 437-4942.

Once logged in, you will see the datasource OTERO_DB in bold, and the application DEEDS - DEED RECORDS under that. To search the DEEDS application, double-click it. This will bring up the search page.

The Search page will allow you to search on any or all fields in the system. For most searches you will want to use the * wildcard. For example to search all GRANTORS containing the name Smith use the search *smith*. If you only want results where the GRANTOR begins with Smith you would use smith*.

The check boxes to the left of each field allow you to select which fields you would like to see in the in the query results page. To the right of each field are tools that allow you to enter search ranges, dates, or lists, where appropriate. Click Submit to perform your search.

This system uses wildcards to make searching much more powerful. The wildcard character * can stand in for any character, and any number of characters. Now, a search for smith will only match records in the search field that contains smith and nothing else. It will not match smith, joe or smith realty.

To match something larger than your search string, use the wildcard. 'smith*' will match 'smith, joe' and 'smith realty' since the wildcard can stand in for ', joe' or ' realty'. It will not, however match 'william smith realty' because the 'william ' in the beginning has no match in the query string. '*smith*' will match 'william smith realty' since the leading wildcard matches 'william ', 'smith' matches 'smith', and the trailing wildcard matches ' realty'.

As shown above, you may use as many wildcards as you like in a single search string. The simplest search you might want to perform would be '*smith*' which would match 'smith' anywhere and everywhere in the field you are searching. Beyond that, try experimenting with wildcards to see how they might help speed up and target your searches.

Another way to search for a range of documents is to enter the index field search criteria as an expression. This gives you more options for narrowing a search within an index field. To help compose your search expression syntax, ApplicationXtender Web Access features an expression editor. To access the editor, click the Search Range button to the right of the index field search criteria text box.

For index field expression searches, use symbols representing expressions as part of the search criteria. These symbols include Between [], Greater Than>, Greater Than Or Equal To>=, Less Than <, Less Than Or Equal To <=, and Not Equal To <>.

To search for documents using an index field expression search:

1. Click the Search Range button corresponding to the Search Value text box you are using to specify search criteria.

   The expression editor appears.

2. From the Type of Comparison list box, choose the type of comparison you want to use.
3. Enter a value in the Value text box. If you selected Between [ ] as the type of comparison, enter a value in the And text box.
4. Click OK. The expression editor closes, and the search criteria page appears with the selected expression syntax in the Search Value text box.
5. Click Submit to start the search. When the search successfully completes, if only one document satisfies the search criteria, that document opens automatically in Document Display view. If two or more documents satisfy the search criteria, Query Results view appears with a list of those documents.

When your search returns a list of matching documents you will see an icon to the right of the check box and to the left of the GRANTOR field.

To view the document in the same window, simply click on the paper part of the icon. To view the document in a new window, click the grey arrow, and a menu will pop up. Select 'Open Document' from the menu.

To print a document, the easiest solution is to return to the query results view. Highlight the document and right mouse click and select Print from the popup menu.

Printing Selected Documents

To print selected documents from a result set:

1. In Query Results view, select the selection check boxes for the documents you want to print. To print all of the documents, click the Select All check box (the check box directly above the first document selection check box in the results list).
2. On the toolbar, click the Print Selected Documents button.

To search for Otero County ordinances use the following format for your search:

• DOCUMENT TYPE: ORDINANCE*