{"id":303,"date":"2006-06-20T00:01:30","date_gmt":"2006-06-20T07:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/19\/alert-record-restriction\/"},"modified":"2016-05-22T12:18:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T19:18:28","slug":"alert-record-restriction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/303","title":{"rendered":"ALERT! Access to Vital Records Threatened"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just read on the Genealogue<\/a> that the Massachusetts legislature is considering legislation to severely restrict access to vital records in Massachusetts .\u00a0 Three bills are being considered, H-3642<\/a>, H-3643<\/a>, and H-3644<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most concerning of these is H-3643 which proposes to restrict all birth records and indexes after 1915 and all marriage and death records and indexes after 1955 .\u00a0 The Massachusetts Genealogical Council<\/a> is urging concerned citizens to write, e-mail, and call Massachusetts legislators to recommend a vote against these bills.<\/p>\n

Public access to vital records has been guaranteed in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties<\/a> since 1641 (see item #48 in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties), but may soon be revoked if these bills pass .\u00a0 These bills are being pushed for passage in the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

Genealogists have both a legitimate reason to access vital records and also\u00c2\u00a0a legitimate need to access vital records .\u00a0 Vital records are some of the best original sources of primary information available and restriction of access to these records threatens both the\u00c2\u00a0quality of genealogical\u00c2\u00a0research and the ability to conduct genealogical research at all.<\/p>\n

Since\u00c2\u00a0public access to vital records is being threatened more and more by legislators seeking to prevent identity theft, the time has come to educate public officials about the value of genealogical research to families seeking to understand their heritage and to\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0general public seeking to preserve the history of\u00c2\u00a0their communities and the nation.<\/p>\n

This is a call to arms .\u00a0 Or in the case of genealogists, perhaps this is a more a call to the computer .\u00a0 Take a few minutes to write .\u00a0 Even one e-mail message can make a difference by planting a new idea in the mind of someone with the political power to make a change .\u00a0 And don’t forget to mention your children, your grandchildren, and your nieces and nephews in your message .\u00a0 After all,\u00a0the action we take today affects them, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just read on the Genealogue that the Massachusetts legislature is considering legislation to severely restrict access to vital records in Massachusetts .\u00a0 Three bills are being considered, H-3642, H-3643, and H-3644. The most concerning of these is H-3643 which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-4T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19039,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/19039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}