Clay County Clerk Office
Patricia Thornton is listed by the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority as Clay County Clerk of Superior Court. The GSCCCA profile lists her year elected as 2017, identifies the office as open during lunch, and gives the same weekday office hours found in the county research. It also lists the courts managed as Superior and Juvenile.
The local Clay County Superior Court page says the office handles real estate, civil, criminal, juvenile, and Board of Equalization appeal administrator matters. That makes the Clerk of Superior Court the starting point for Clay County Superior Court case copies and many land or lien records, while Probate Court and Magistrate Court keep their own case-type records.
Clay County Clerk of Superior Court
Clerk: Patricia Thornton
210 Washington Street South, Suite 3
Fort Gaines, GA 39851
(229) 768-2631
Fax: (229) 768-3047
8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; open during lunch per GSCCCA
The county Superior Court page is shown below from the manifest source. It connects the Clay County clerk office to the local record categories that most Superior Court users need.
The page is also important because it links to FANS, the statewide notice system for certain real estate and personal property filings.
Clay County Clerk Duties
The Clerk of Superior Court is not a general help desk for every court in Clay County. The office is tied to Superior Court and Juvenile Court functions, plus clerk-record systems that Georgia superior court clerks maintain. A person looking for probate estates, marriage licenses, traffic citations, small civil claims, arrest warrants, or county jail records may need a different office even when the search starts at the courthouse.
- Maintain Superior Court civil case records, including filings, motions, orders, and final judgments.
- Maintain Superior Court criminal case records after felony matters reach the trial court.
- Handle juvenile court records, subject to Georgia confidentiality limits.
- Maintain real estate and related clerk records that may also appear through GSCCCA search tools.
- Serve as Board of Equalization appeal administrator, according to the county Superior Court page.
The Pataula Judicial Circuit clerk page separately lists the Clay County clerk office and courtroom locations. That circuit source is useful because it shows the office address and the courtroom address are not the same.
Request Clay County Certified Copies
Certified copies are used when a court record must show that it came from the clerk's official file. Clay County did not publish a copy request form or a certified-copy fee schedule in the official clerk page captured during research. The safest request method is to contact the Clerk of Superior Court with enough detail for staff to locate the record, then confirm fees and pickup or mailing options before sending payment.
- Identify the court and record type. Superior Court civil, criminal, divorce, juvenile, real estate, and BOE appeal files route to the Clerk of Superior Court.
- Gather party names, case number if known, filing year, document type, and whether a plain or certified copy is needed.
- Call the Clay County Clerk of Superior Court to confirm availability, copy fees, certification rules, and whether the file is local or archived.
- Submit the request using the office's accepted method and provide payment only after the office confirms the amount.
- Ask whether the copy will be picked up, mailed, or otherwise delivered, and keep the clerk's receipt or reference details.
Clay County Request Fields
No official Clay County Clerk of Superior Court copy request form was located in the research file. The fields below reflect the information a clerk usually needs to find a local case or recorded document, while avoiding any claim that Clay County published a specific form. Give as much detail as possible because the research did not find a public case search screen for Clay County Superior Court.
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Case number or instrument number | If known | Best locator for Superior Court cases or recorded clerk documents. |
| Party names | Yes | Use full names and prior names when searching civil, criminal, divorce, or land records. |
| Record type | Yes | State whether the request is civil, criminal, divorce, juvenile, real estate, lien, plat, or BOE-related. |
| Approximate filing year | Recommended | Helps staff distinguish older files and wrong-party matches. |
| Copy type | Yes | Ask for plain, certified, exemplified if available, or complete case file copy. |
| Requester contact | Yes | Include a phone number or mailing information so the office can confirm fees and delivery. |
Clay County Clerk Fees
Clay County's official Superior Court page did not publish plain copy, certified copy, or search fee amounts in the research captured for this build. The GSCCCA homepage did publish statewide account fee changes for clerk search subscriptions effective July 1, 2025. Local copy fees should be confirmed with the Clerk of Superior Court before a request is mailed or paid.
| Item | Amount or status |
|---|---|
| Plain copy per page | Research gap: not published in official Clay County clerk source reviewed. |
| Certified copy fee | Research gap: confirm directly with the Clerk of Superior Court. |
| Search fee | Research gap: not published in the local source reviewed. |
| GSCCCA Regular account monthly subscriber fee | $14.95 effective July 1, 2025, per GSCCCA homepage research. |
| GSCCCA Premium account monthly subscriber fee | $29.95 effective July 1, 2025, per GSCCCA homepage research. |
| FANS filing activity notifications | Free notification system for certain filed real estate and personal property records. |
Note: A GSCCCA subscription is not the same as a certified Clay County court copy from the clerk's office.
Clay County GSCCCA Records
The GSCCCA search page supports statewide clerk record categories such as UCC, real estate, PT-61, lien, plat, notary, and carbon registry searches. Those tools are not a complete Clay County court case portal. They are most relevant to land records and clerk-maintained filing categories, while case details may require the local office or an account-gated court record system.
The assigned manifest image below comes from the GSCCCA Clay County clerk profile. It is the strongest direct source for the clerk name, office hours, managed courts, and county profile details.
GSCCCA also offers FANS, the Filing Activity Notification System, for alerts when certain real estate and personal property records are filed and transmitted by Clerks of Superior Court.
Clay County Filing Channels
Georgia court users may encounter Odyssey eFileGA for electronic filing and Georgia Courts e-access pages that redirect users to provider systems. The research notes that re:SearchGA is account-gated and that Clay County participation was not confirmed from the official county page. For Clay County Superior Court records, direct clerk contact remains the reliable fallback when an online account does not expose the record.
The federal justice images assigned to this page are useful boundary markers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is not the Clay County Clerk of Superior Court, but it is the federal appellate court for Georgia federal matters.
Federal appeal records are searched through federal court systems, not the Clay County clerk office.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Georgia is another federal source assigned to this clerk page in the manifest.
That federal office may appear in federal criminal matters, while local Superior Court case files remain with the Clay County Clerk of Superior Court.