Betsy Roberts Miller ⁂Massachusetts Dept of Public Health wants to hide public genealogy records -
Buried inside Massachusetts' latest budget bill, a proposal is being pushed that would upend four centuries of Massachusetts records-access practice. Section 43 of H.5377 would close uncertified birth and marriage records for 90 years, death records for 50 years, and give DPH sweeping power to decide who has a “legitimate need” to see vital records at all. They could potentially use this to close down access to certified copies (which have always been open to the public in Massachusetts) and all the indexes (which are also open to the public).
Reach out to the Massachusetts Committee on Ways and Means (the people who deal with budgets) to voice your opinions on potentially closing off Massachusetts vital records.
Details in newsletter -
https://mailchi.mp/reclaimtherecords/we-massively-need-your-help-massachusetts-public-access
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Reclaim The Records
We’re Reclaim The Records, a new not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates. We identify important genealogical records sets that ought to be in the public domain but which are being wrongly restricted by government archives, libraries, and agencies. We file Freedom of Information and Open Data requests to get that public data released back to the public. And if the government doesn’t comply, we take them to court. Then we digitize everything we win and put it all online for free, without any paywalls or usage restrictions, so that it can never be locked up again. Learn more about our work and sign up for our newsletter!