Has anyone gotten an ownership history report from NY, PA or MI?

[89tc]

I'm trying to find the ownership history of one of my cars and wanted to know if anyone here knew how to go about it. A search on the internet turns up carfax-like sites, which is useless for a 1970 car. Back before computers you could send some money and car info and get a bunch of papers stapled together with the car's history but I don't know if states do that anymore. I'm looking for recent info to attain history reports for New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan because I think my car may have been in one of those states. The only info I have so far is that it was sold new at a dealership in western PA in 1970 and ended up in Michigan where I bought it in 2015. So I'm trying to fill in the missing 45 years of ownership...

[Terry Bond]

Not likely you'll be able track that info down due to privacy laws.  If you're lucky you've got a prior owner's name somewhere on an old registration or insurance document.  That might help you let your fingers do the walking on your keyboard to possibly find a previous owner - but it's a stretch.  Good luck and let us know if you have any results.

Terry

[alsancle]

There are no services that will track previous owners.  Some states lost or tossed their records and the ones that didn’t won’t give up the info because of the previously noted privacy issues.

[edinmass]

I had a title problem on a 1917 car, and the last sale was in New York. They had registration information from 1952 already scanned and in the computer. Bad news is, you can’t get access unless you have a reason.........

[Peter S]

https://dmv.ny.gov/dmv-records/get-vehicle-registration-or-title-record-abstract

 

has the info for requesting a NY State title abstract, including acceptable uses

[ted sweet]

and the reasons you want it are almost none

[Bryan G]

In the 90's I was able to get a photocopy of a title for a car I didn't own, from Maryland. I tried this again this fall, for a car I don't own (but want to-current owner is an estate who can't find the title, don't know who was on the title, etc.) I filled out the little form and all indications are they would have sent me a Xerox except they have no record of the car. They didn't seem to need a "legitimate" reason for me asking.