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our fifty-second we wanna be in the room where it happens newsletter
We did it! And YOU guys did it!
New York's sneaky attempt to cut off public records access has now been stopped cold...
Your e-mails and phone calls to state legislators saved the day!
The state budget's awful proposed language -- which would have essentially banned public access to both modern and historical birth, marriage, and death records, and their basic indices -- has now been removed!
...but we're not done yet. We don't just want to play whack-a-mole against these bad bills forever. We want to FIX the state's longstanding records access problems, and make sure this kind of thing never happens again.
...and so we're supporting A BRAND NEW BILL!
Hello again from non-profit advocacy group Reclaim The Records, back with some GOOD news, and hopefully also some GREAT news. We defeated "Part U" -- and now we want to modernize New York's vital records access!
Last week, the New York State Legislature adopted the Health and Mental Health budget (A3007C / S3007C) without Part U, the awful provision which would have restricted public access to vital records and even their basic text indices. Three months of legislative advocacy -- including some awesome live testimony to the budget committee by one of our very own directors -- meetings with senators’ and assembly members’ offices, and thousands of letters in oppositon put the issue on lawmakers’ radar and resulted in Part U’s demise. We asked for your help, and you delivered! Thank you, thank you!
But we also recognize that it's still not enough for us to keep raising the alarm and then squashing these sorts of bad bills, even through direct advocacy and in-person testimony. And New York State has had a huge problem with historical records access for years now, as covered extensively in the state press. It currently takes researchers YEARS to get a single copy of an old and unrestricted and perfectly unremarkable death certificate in New York State.
Meanwhile, the state's Department of Health has already put in place internal vendor contracts to digitally scan and index their old vital records, but they don't publish them online. And they also refuse to share both the new digital copies andthe old paper copies of their historical records with the State Archives.
New York records access is just a hot mess. But now, we're going to try to FIX IT.
Working with our retained legislative counsel in Albany, Reclaim The Records has contributed to draft language and is actively supporting the introduction of a brand new bill, S.7782 by Senator James Skoufis (NY-42). This bill would direct the New York State Department of Health to work with a private partner to finish digitizing all of the state's historical birth, marriage, and death records and put them online with searchable public indexes, matching the policies and access in New York's neighboring states.
S.7782 is now in the State Senate; an Assembly companion bill is expected soon. Our immediate goal is to see the bill placed on the Health Committee agenda so that it can be voted into law. Some excellent reasons to support this bill
Right now, we need help from other genealogy organizations in the form of letters of support for this bill emphasizing this bill's key benefits:
- Transparency and alignment with other states - every one of New York's neighboring states currently provides far better public access to their historical materials than New Yorkers have!
- Increased access to records will benefit public health, probate processes, and academic research - this isn't just about genealogists!
- Relief for the existing genealogy request backlog, allowing DOH to meet its obligation to provide public records - the backlog at the DOH for even simple requests is curently several years long! Having this legislation direct them to publish their already-scanned records online would actually help them do their jobs.
- Minimal compliance costs -- this one's extra-important! The DOH already has multi-year vendor contracts to scan and index their old records; they just have to start sharing the images and data.
Here's how to help us pass this bill
If you are involved with a genealogy organization who cares about New York history and New York records access, please reach out to our board member Alec Ferretti at alecferretti@reclaimtherecords.org right away so we can coordinate our outreach. There are only a few weeks left of this legislative season, so please confer with the members of your society or organization and talk to Alec ASAP.
With focused effort, we can move S.7782 from first reading to the Governor’s desk—and finally give New York a 21st‑century vital records access system. Today we are still just a bill, but tomorrow we could be millions of historical New York records finally set free for public access.
Thank you for standing with us. Help Us Keep Fighting – Donate Today!
Reclaim The Records is a small but mighty organization that fights for public access to historical records. We don’t take government funding — we rely entirely on grassroots support from people like you.
If you believe in open records, transparency, and genealogical rights, please make a donation today.
Every dollar goes directly toward legal efforts, public awareness campaigns, and the fight against record closures like this one. Click here to donate now! Your support helps us keep up the fight.
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