Access Calhoun County Chancery Records

About the Calhoun County Chancery Clerk

Kathy Poynor is the Calhoun County Chancery Clerk. She runs the office inside the county courthouse in Pittsboro. The Chancery Clerk is an elected county officer in Mississippi. The role carries two duties at once. The clerk serves the Chancery Court, and the clerk records the county's land and official documents.

As clerk of court, the office files and stores petitions, decrees, and orders for equity, divorce, probate, and guardianship cases. As land-records custodian, it records deeds, deeds of trust, liens, and plats. The same counter answers copy requests and certifies documents for court use and title work. Mississippi's Chancery Court system gives this clerk a wide reach over county life, from estates to property titles.

What the Calhoun County Chancery Clerk Handles

The Chancery Clerk wears two hats in Calhoun County. One job is clerk of the Chancery Court. The other is recorder of the county's land and official records. Both roles run out of the same Pittsboro office. Marriage licenses and felony Circuit Court files are not kept here. Those records belong to the Calhoun County Circuit Clerk, a separate office for circuit, criminal, and marriage-license matters.

• File and maintain Chancery Court case records, including divorce, alimony, and custody files
• Keep probate records such as wills, estate administrations, and letters testamentary
• Record guardianships, conservatorships, and minor's business handled in equity
• Record deeds, deeds of trust, liens, and other land documents in the official index
• Issue certified copies and collect statutory recording and copy fees

The county officials directory published by the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office confirms the clerk's name, address, and phone number. That directory is a quick way to verify the right contact before you travel to the courthouse.

Chancery Court Records in Calhoun County

Chancery Court in Calhoun County handles matters in equity. That covers divorce and alimony, child custody, and family disputes. It also covers wills, estates, guardianships, and conservatorships. Land-title suits, such as actions to confirm or cancel a deed, belong here too. The Eighteenth Chancery District serves Calhoun and four neighboring counties from this court.

Many of these files are public, yet some carry redactions. Records that name minor children, list financial accounts, or raise mental-health and capacity questions may be sealed or limited by court order. Adoption files are sensitive and are generally restricted. The clerk can confirm only what the law and the court allow. The full estate process and its records live in the Calhoun County Chancery Court probate records.

A few terms come up again and again in these files. Learning them helps a reader scan a docket or a copy request.

Petition

A request asking the Chancery Court to act, common in divorce, probate, and equity cases.

Letters testamentary

Authority the court issues to an executor named in a will.

Guardianship

Court-authorized care and decision-making for a minor or an incapacitated person.

Conservatorship

Court-supervised management of money or property for someone unable to handle it.

Probate

The court process for administering a deceased person's estate.

Note: Records that name minor children or list financial accounts may be redacted, so a public copy can show less than the full court file.

Calhoun County Chancery Court E-Filing

Calhoun County Chancery Court joined Mississippi Electronic Courts on March 20, 2023. Filings made after that date are more likely to route through the Eighteenth Chancery MEC portal. The system is login-gated. There is no free, anonymous public case search behind the front page, so a casual reader cannot browse divorce or probate dockets without credentials.

Attorneys of record and registered users sign in through the MEC and PAMEC login. The login screen lists the fields below. Statewide support for the system runs through the Mississippi Electronic Courts office, with a helpdesk at 601-576-4650 and helpdesk@mec.ms.gov. The court's own contact details and hours appear on the Eighteenth Chancery court-information page.

For older paper files, sealed documents, or anything not visible in MEC, the clerk remains the source. Pre-2023 divorce decrees, estate files, and land judgments often live only in the courthouse books. The system also guards privacy. MEC warns that filings should not list Social Security numbers, dates of birth, names of minor children, financial account numbers, or home addresses except as the rules allow, so a public copy may mask details the parties once filed.

Calhoun County Land Records Online

The Chancery Clerk publishes an online index of Calhoun County land records. The portal at calhouncoms.com opens the DuProcess Web Inquiry application. From a computer, a user can browse the land-record index by name or document type. The index helps locate deeds, deeds of trust, and related filings before a courthouse visit.

The online tool comes with firm limits. The portal states plainly that the online index is not the official index. Only the Land Records Index kept inside the Calhoun County Courthouse is official. The site also asks users to indemnify and hold the Chancery Clerk harmless for damages tied to pulling information over the Internet. Copies bought online are paid by credit card through the official land-record inquiry application.

Land titles tie into the court's equity work as well. The Eighteenth Chancery District lists suits to try title, suits to cancel deeds or clouds on title, and actions to decree possession, rents, improvements, and taxes among its cases. A title problem that the index alone cannot fix often becomes a Chancery Court suit. That is why a deed search and a court-file search sometimes point back to the same office.

Note: The online land index is updated as a convenience, yet the bound index inside the Pittsboro courthouse remains the only official record of title.

Chancery Records Request Form Fields

Calhoun County does not post a single online request form for chancery and land records. Under the Mississippi Public Records Act, a written request to the record custodian is the standard path when a record is not searchable online. A clear request moves faster. Give the clerk enough detail to find one file instead of dozens.

A request that names the decedent, the parties, or the property is far easier to fill. For an estate file, add the approximate date of death and the case number if you have it.

How to Request Copies or Land Records

Certified copies carry the clerk's seal and prove a record is genuine. Banks, title companies, and courts often require them. A plain copy works for personal reference but does not carry the same legal weight. The steps below fit both a court file and a land record.

1. Identify the record type. Divorce, probate, and guardianship sit in the Chancery Court file, while deeds and liens sit in the land index.
2. Gather details. Have party names, a case or instrument number if known, the document type, and an approximate date.
3. Choose a channel. Visit the courthouse counter in Pittsboro, mail a written request to P.O. Box 8, or call the office at 662-412-3117.
4. Ask for the fee first. Confirm the current copy and certification charge before you pay, since those amounts are not posted online.
5. Pay and collect. Pick the copy up at the counter or have it mailed. Online credit-card purchases through the land portal are final.

Mississippi law shapes some of these files. A short-cut for small estates appears in Section 91-7-322, and the residency rule for divorce sits in Section 93-5-5. Both can affect what the clerk has on file.

Calhoun County Chancery Clerk Fees

One Chancery Clerk fee is published. The online land portal charges a credit-card service fee on copy purchases. Most counter, copy, certification, and filing fees are not posted in official Calhoun online sources. The honest answer is to call the office for a current quote before you mail payment or plan a filing.

Note: Copy and certification fees were not posted in official online sources, so confirm the current amount with the Chancery Clerk before mailing payment.