 |
| Yes, Actual book on Amazon.com |
In the Name of Privacy
What
do census records, voter’s registrations, and court dockets have in common?
They all are sources exempt from the Privacy Act that can be referenced when
searching for our ancestor’s vital records: birth, marriage, divorce and death.
Oh, and let’s not forget criminal
records and professional and business licenses. They too are exempt from the
Privacy Act.
In
the name of privacy there are many access restrictions imposed by states, but
the persistent family researcher may still uncover their ancestor’s vital
records. The article Genealogy Research vs. Privacy Restrictions posted by
Archives.com on 31 Jan 2012 gives the researcher a few options for ferreting
our ancestor’s vital records when the Privacy Act gets in our way.
From State to
State
The
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) policies of some federal and state repositories
are often implemented in such a way that the “Freedom” part is buried in red
tape. Privacy Act restrictions vary state to state and are implemented in the
most creative ways. Restrictions of seventy five years seem to be favored by
many states’ birth certificate access; as is fifty years for withholding death records.
And
whereas some state and federal repositories have 50 or 75 year restrictions,
others impose a 62 wait (i.e. Veteran’s service records). A few, like the
Social Security FOIA now enforces a 100 year from birthdate (regardless of death
date) restriction. If your ancestor had a 1912 birthdate, you can receive an unaltered social security documents this
year. Later social security applications will be under the scrutiny of the
agent who liberally uses a redaction tool to eliminate the useful information the
family researcher is seeking.
Yet,
privacy act implementations and restrictions should not prevent the family
researcher from locating birth, marriage and death records. Plus, know that a few
open states do exist. And others, like Pennsylvania, are becoming more genealogy-friendly,
where access to birth, marriage divorce and death records is less of an
obstacle course.
Kathleen
Brandt
a3genealogy@gmail.com
Accurate,
accessible answers
This is interesting because even 100 years after birth, I couldn't get a grand uncles SS5 application because I couldn't prove his date of death. He was born abt. 1896 and the request was made in 2010.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should try, again. My whole point in requesting it was trying to determine where he might have ended up in life because nobody knows where he settled, when he died, etc.