About the Concordia Parish Clerk of Court
The clerk's own website names the officeholder as John F. "Andy" Anders, Jr., and the Louisiana Clerks of Court Association (LCCA) directory tags his tenure as starting in July 2020. Concordia voters fill the office every four years, as voters do in each Louisiana parish. Under the state constitution the same person serves as clerk of the district court, ex officio notary public, and parish recorder of conveyances, mortgages, and other acts. The Election Code adds one more job: the clerk is the chief election officer of the parish.
Concordia borders the Mississippi River, and Wikipedia's article on the parish places it in the Natchez, MS-LA Micropolitan Statistical Area; it says Vidalia's founder, a Natchez resident, sought land grants on the Louisiana side of the river. Two of Concordia's seven neighbors are Mississippi counties (Adams and Wilkinson), and the other five are Louisiana parishes spread across five judicial districts, only one of which (Catahoula's) Concordia shares. Wikipedia gives 1807 as the year the parish was formed. The state's Local Louisiana page says the origin of the name is uncertain: an early land grant called New Concordia, a "concord" between local authorities over a mutual surrender of slaves, and a mansion named Concord owned by Governor de Lemos are all offered as possibilities.
Census figures put the 2020 base population at 18,681 and the July 2024 estimate at 17,797. The parish covers roughly 697 square miles of land plus about 50 square miles of water.
Online, the office keeps a single page. It carries the contact details, the hours, a link to the office's e-services, and several notices (the Legislative Auditor's fraud hotline, a sexual harassment policy, and a Title VI notice). For emergency closures, election schools, and jury subpoenas, the page points readers to the clerk's Facebook page. Separately, state law requires every clerk to conduct a course of instruction for election commissioners at least once a year. The other 63 clerks are listed in the Louisiana Clerks of Court directory.
Court records in Concordia Parish
Suits, criminal prosecutions, successions, and other matters filed in the 7th Judicial District Court for Concordia Parish make up the court record held in this office. Louisiana's constitution gives district courts original jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters, with listed exceptions, and exclusive original jurisdiction over felonies. The sources reviewed for this page show no city court in Concordia Parish, which leaves the district court as the main trial court for the parish.
There is no stand-alone case search on the clerk's page. What the office does link, under its E-Services heading, is eClerks LA, which it describes as its online filing system for e-recording and e-filing. eClerks LA is run by the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority (LCRAA). Its Statewide Portal is free once you open an account and indexes land records, marriage licenses, and civil, family, and probate court records. Its separate Parish Search is where users buy a subscription to a parish's system to view and print images. This page could not confirm which Concordia series or date ranges are loaded there, so treat any online result as a lead and confirm it with the office.
Louisiana's Public Records Law gives any person the right to a copy of a public record unless a specific exception applies, and the custodian bears the burden of showing an exception fits. A custodian may set reasonable copy fees but may not charge you just to look at a record. The Concordia clerk's site does not publish a copy fee schedule, so ask for current charges before you order certified copies.
Two categories stay closed. Juvenile court records are confidential under the Children's Code, apart from traffic matters, and an expunged arrest or conviction is removed from public access even though the record itself is not destroyed. The statewide guides to court records, criminal records, and civil records explain those rules in more detail.
Land, mortgage, and property records
As recorder, the clerk keeps the conveyance and mortgage books for land in Concordia Parish. The Civil Code sends an instrument creating a mortgage on an immovable to the mortgage records of the parish where the property lies, and sends sales, donations, and most other land instruments to that parish's conveyance records. A deed filed for registry must also name the person responsible for the property taxes and give an address where tax notices should go.
The clerk's E-Services link to eClerks LA covers e-recording. No vendor list or recording fee schedule appears on the clerk's page, so filers who need the exact charge for a document should call before sending it.
Because recording follows the land, the parish line decides which office to search. A tract that crosses into Tensas Parish also needs a search with the Tensas Parish Clerk of Court in St. Joseph. Catahoula Parish shares Concordia's judicial district but not its land records, so property on that side belongs in the books of the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court in Harrisonburg. Along the remaining borders, the Avoyelles Parish Clerk of Court and the Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana clerks each keep their own records. Land across the river in Adams or Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is outside every Louisiana parish and is not recorded here at all.
Assessed values come from the parish assessor, and the sheriff collects the property tax. The Louisiana property records guide explains how these offices divide the work.
Marriage licenses and family records
The clerk's website says nothing about marriage licenses, so call the office for its current fee, hours, and document list before you go. State law assigns license issuance to the clerk of court in every parish except Orleans, and it allows a license to be issued in any parish no matter where the couple lives or where the ceremony will take place. That means a couple marrying in Vidalia could also buy a license elsewhere in Louisiana.
Some rules are the same everywhere. At the state level, each applicant presents a certified birth certificate (or a judge's waiver order) and an accepted form of identification, such as an unexpired driver's license or passport. A license expires 30 days after issuance. The ceremony may not happen until 24 hours have passed since the license was issued, unless a judge or authorized justice of the peace waives the delay for serious and meritorious reasons. Within ten days after the wedding, the officiant files copies of the certificate with the clerk who issued the license, and that clerk sends a copy on to the state registrar of vital records.
For that reason, a certified copy of a marriage licensed in Concordia comes from the Concordia clerk, not from the Louisiana Department of Health, which keeps marriage records only for licenses bought in Orleans Parish. Divorce works the same way: Vital Records does not issue divorce decrees, so a certified copy comes from the clerk in the parish where the divorce was granted. A Louisiana divorce may be filed where either spouse is domiciled or in the parish of the last matrimonial domicile. How Louisiana handles these records outside Concordia is laid out in the guides to marriage records and divorce records.
Courts that serve Concordia Parish
Concordia and Catahoula parishes together make up the 7th Judicial District Court, and the clerk's site header identifies the office as clerk of court for that district. No separate website for the court was found. A shared district does not mean a shared clerk: each parish elects its own clerk, so a case filed in Harrisonburg sits in the Catahoula record, not in Vidalia.
Concordia has no special juvenile court. Outside Caddo, Orleans, Jefferson, and East Baton Rouge, the Children's Code gives district courts original juvenile jurisdiction, which places Concordia's juvenile matters in the 7th Judicial District Court.
Appeals from the district court go to the Court of Appeal, Third Circuit in Lake Charles. Several of Concordia's neighbors appeal elsewhere. Under R.S. 13:312, Tensas Parish belongs to the Second Circuit, and Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana belong to the First Circuit. Someone following a case that started just across one of those parish lines may find the appeal in Shreveport or Baton Rouge rather than Lake Charles.
Visiting the Concordia Parish courthouse
The clerk's office is Room 5 at 4001 Carter Street in Vidalia. The address is shared with other parish offices: the Concordia Parish Police Jury lists Room 1 at the same street number, and the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association lists the sheriff's office in Room 7. One trip can therefore cover a recording, a question for the police jury, and a stop at the sheriff's office.
According to the clerk's website (October 2026), the office opens Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closes on holidays. Among other dates, the posted list includes Mardi Gras, Good Friday, All Saints' Day, Veterans' Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve, and it lists Juneteenth as a closure if approved. Check the Facebook page before driving in on any date near a holiday. State law extends a filing deadline to the end of the first day an office reopens when a clerk closes for a public emergency.
Wikipedia's article on the Concordia Parish Courthouse describes a building completed in 1939 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. It says the courthouse replaced an earlier one demolished when Vidalia was moved six blocks inland for a flood control project. That article gives the address as 405 Carter Street, which differs from the 4001 Carter Street the clerk uses, so this page does not assume the clerk works in the listed building. Ask when you call if the distinction matters to you.
Neither the LCCA nor the clerk's site gives a separate mailing address.
Other Concordia Parish offices
The Louisiana Sheriffs' Association lists David Hedrick as Concordia Parish Sheriff, with the office online at concordiasheriff.org. The sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer, keeps the parish jail, and outside Orleans collects state and parish property taxes. For locating someone in custody, see the inmate search guide, and for the statewide picture, Louisiana sheriff's offices.
Jeannie M. Archer is listed as Concordia Parish Assessor by the Louisiana Assessors' Association. No working assessor website was confirmed, so reach that office by phone or in person. The assessors guide explains assessed value and the homestead exemption.
The Concordia Parish Police Jury describes itself as the governing body of the parish outside the incorporated towns of Vidalia, Ferriday, Ridgecrest, and Clayton, each of which has its own municipal government. Voter registration is handled by a registrar of voters appointed by the parish governing authority, not by the clerk. The parish government guide covers how police juries work.