What a line usually holds
One line for each act — and usually one for each signer, when several sign. Where a state asks for a journal, the entry typically records:
- When — the date and time of the act.
- What — the kind of act (an acknowledgment, a jurat, an oath) and the document: its title or type, and often its date.
- Who — the signer’s name, and in many states their address and signature in the book.
- How you knew them — the ID you examined, personal knowledge where the state allows it, or credible witnesses.
- The fee — what you charged for the act, or that you charged nothing.
Your state decides
The rules pull in different directions. Three states, side by side:
| State | A journal is | Kept in | The ID’s number | A thumbprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | Required | A bound paper book | Recorded | Required for listed documents |
| Texas | Required | Paper or electronic | Must not be recorded | Must not be taken |
| Florida | Not required; recommended | — | May be recorded | Not required |
From Hand & Seal’s rule sets, drafted from the statutes listed under Sources: checked against the statute’s text on October 4, 2026; not yet reviewed by an attorney. Your state’s handbook and commissioning office have the last word.
California has the ID’s number recorded in the journal, and asks for a thumbprint there for the documents its law lists. A right thumbprint in the journal for a deed, quitclaim deed, deed of trust or other document affecting real property, and for a power of attorney — not for a trustee’s deed after a foreclosure or a deed of reconveyance (Gov. Code § 8206(a)(2)(G)). If the right thumb cannot be used, the left or any finger is, and the entry says so. Texas allows neither the ID’s number nor a thumbprint in the journal (1 Tex. Admin. Code § 87.50). A habit that is required in one state can be a violation in the next — which matters most to a notary commissioned in more than one.
Where no journal is required
Keep one anyway. Years after a signing, a signer may deny having signed, or a court may ask how you identified them; the entry you made that day is what you have. Record what your state lets a journal hold, and keep the book as carefully.
Keeping it safe
The journal holds the personal details of everyone you have served. Keep it in your own custody, locked away between signings, and do not hand the book itself to a client or a company. Don’t photograph its pages or keep them on a phone: a lost phone is then a lost journal.
What a state says about keeping the book, and what becomes of it, differs as well. In the three rule sets above:
- California. The journal is the notary’s own and stays in their exclusive custody; one active sequential journal at a time. If the commission ends without being renewed, the journals are delivered to the county clerk where the oath is on file within 30 days.
- Texas. Kept until the tenth anniversary of each notarization; entries are public information, and a certified copy is given to anyone who asks and pays the fee.
- Florida. Florida requires an electronic journal only for online notarizations (§ 117.245); for acts in person a journal is not required by statute.
Paper, electronic, and the app
Of the rule sets for the fifty states and D.C., 30 let a journal be kept on paper or electronically and 7 name a bound paper book; for the other 14 the form is not established here. Where a state requires a bound paper book, the book is the legal record and nothing on a screen replaces it.
Hand & Seal works with your paper journal rather than around it: each job records which book, page and line its entries are on, so any entry can be found again in seconds. The journal form follows your state’s rules as these rule sets have them — it asks for what they require and never for what they forbid — and keeps at most the last four digits of an ID. It never takes a photo of an ID, a thumbprint or a journal page. See what it does.