New Jersey Archives - Reclaim The Records (2024)

🚨LEGISLATION ALERT: NEW JERSEY ABOUT TO GUT RECORDS ACCESS FOR GENEALOGISTS?🚨(and journalists and historians too, but let’s just focus on the genealogists here for a minute) Hello from your muckraking troublemaking suing-the-government-for-free-genealogical-records friends at Reclaim The Records! We write today with some very frustrating news — but also a chance to save future records access and transparency in the Garden State.The state of New Jersey, where we have successfully acquired and freely released millions of records in recent years, is trying to amend their state-level Freedom of Information law, which they call the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), through bills S2930/A4045. This controversial plan was pulled from the state Appropriations Committee just a few hours ago, but it’s not dead yet by any means, not unless we all work to stop it.This bill to gut the power of the state’s public records law has sparked considerable concern among genealogists, historians, journalists, and champions for government transparency. This call to action provides a detailed explanation of what’s at stake, why it matters, and how we, as a community dedicated to reclaiming and preserving public records, can stand against it.*** Why is New Jersey’s existing law so good for records access? ***Our successful endeavor to unlock the New Jersey Marriage Index (1901-2016) under OPRA serves as a testament to the power of strong public records laws. Back in 2017, when we first tried to get a copy of this data, the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH) refused to release the index, and we prepared to file suit. However, in the end, all we had to do was file a strongly worded appeal with the Government Records Council, because as soon as the Attorney General’s Office got involved, they settled the case with us and produced the records. We promptly posted more than 100 years of New Jersey marriage indexes online, for free, for everyone. Hooray, pork rolls and salt water taffy for everyone!A few months later, we again leveraged this state law, OPRA, to obtain the first-ever New Jersey Death Index for a similar timespan. This time around, the DOH responded promptly to our wonderful open records attorney, CJ Griffin, of Pashman Stein, and the state produced everything they had, again without our actually having to drag them into court, which was a nice change from some of its more cantankerous neighbor states.One of the reasons these two efforts went so relatively smoothly is that unlike many other states’ open records laws, New Jersey’s OPRA mandates that someone who wins a records access lawsuit against the state deserves to have their attorneys fees paid by the state. Because of this, state government agencies are more hesitant to blatantly break the law and wrongly withhold records from the public, because they know they will be on the hook for the fees if they lose the case.But the newly-proposed bill would change that, and make it so that even a totally winning lawsuit against a state agency merely "might" get their attorneys fees reimbursed for their troubles. This would chill the ability of requestors to challenge agencies that wrongly withhold records, because let’s face it, lawsuits are not cheap, and a lot of people would be hesitant or flat-out unable to sue if they knew they wouldn’t get reimbursed for doing the right thing.So we do have a good amount of genealogical material already open from New Jersey, free for everyone, everywhere, forever, and it’s specifically thanks to this law, OPRA. But now the state wants to hobble this awesome public records law in cement shoes and sink it in the Pinelands.*** The Imminent Threats to Genealogical Research ***At the core of the bills lies a series of amendments that not only redefines what constitutes a public record, but also dismantles the mechanisms that hold governmental agencies accountable for denying access without just cause.Our friends (and likely yours) at the Association of Professional Genealogists (the APG) have vocally opposed the proposed revisions, underscoring the dire implications for genealogists and historical researchers. The broadening of "personal identifying information" definitions threatens to severely limit access to essential historical records. These documents, crucial for understanding family origins, could become inaccessible or heavily redacted. The proposed changes could turn professional genealogists, inadvertently caught in the widened net of "data brokers," into unwitting violators of the law, merely for doing their jobs.Moreover, the potential exemption of "draft" documents from public access opens a Pandora’s box of subjectivity, allowing agencies to withhold anything under this ambiguous label. The procedural hurdles introduced by the amendments—such as delaying the start of request processing until "official receipt" by a custodian—pose significant barriers, designed to frustrate and delay the pursuit of information.The draft law goes on to provide for the exemption of metadata from disclosure, which is particularly concerning for genealogists who rely on searchable indexes and comprehensive datasets to conduct thorough historical research. It’s very possible that if this law is signed, the genealogy community will no longer be able to obtain any new vital records indices from New Jersey, as the state may consider an index to be "metadata." That would be a huge and terrible change from our successful efforts in the past few years.*** So, what are we doing about this? ***"Put your makeup on / fix your hair up pretty / and meet me tonight in Atlantic City" — the BossWell of course we’re doing something about this. We don’t know if it’s going to work, but we’re trying. First of all, we’re telling all of you about this situation, so that those of you who live in Jersey can call your legislators and voice your opinions — more on that below. But we’re also doing what we’re traditionally good at doing, which is to say fighting for records (while we still can).Although uncertified copies of vital records (bizarrely called certifications) are generally public in New Jersey, the DOH may try to use the passage of this new gutting-public-records-requests law to derail our request for the indexes. If the law is signed by the governor, we may be never get vital records indexes out of New Jersey ever again.So, earlier this week, we at Reclaim The Records submitted a brand new OPRA request to the New Jersey Department of Health for the state birth index. Yes, the New Jersey birth index, the whole thing. We already have the death index and marriage index, so we may as well complete the set, right? While we were recently able to obtain and release the New Jersey Geographic Birth Index from 1900-1930 from old microfilms at the wonderful and amazing New Jersey State Archives back in 2021, the state DOH still maintains the rest of the birth index, up to the present day.And that’s not the only OPRA request we’re trying to get in under-the-wire, although our other efforts are a little more complicated and going to be kept quiet for now. But in addition to the birth index, we’re also making new OPRA requests that we perhaps would not have considered before, simply to try to beat the clock on the new law. We know that the requests might not work, or might have to become lawsuits, and this bill could become reality at any time. But we have to try.*** And Here’s How You Can Make a Difference ***This moment calls for action from each member of our community, especially those who live in New Jersey. If you are a resident, please reach out to your New Jersey legislators to voice your opposition to any changes to OPRA. Send them an email, and call their offices during business hours. Emphasize the importance of OPRA for genealogical research, historical documentation, and the public’s right to know. Share stories of how access to public records has enriched your life or the lives of others, and stress the negative impact these amendments could have on future research. Explain that the bill’s changes to the state law’s definitions of both "metadata" and "personal identifying information" could severely limit access to historical and genealogical records.And be sure to send a copy of any messages to Governor Murphy as well, and urge him to veto any possible legislation that crosses his desk! His office even has a “Text Governor Murphy” service, reachable at: (732) 605-5455.In the face of these kinds of challenges, your support for Reclaim The Records is more critical than ever. Together, we can continue to fight for transparency, challenge unjust barriers to information, and keep the annals of history open to everyone. As a non-profit organization, we rely on the generosity of our community to continue our advocacy and litigation efforts.The fight against these amendments transcends the interests of genealogists and historians; it is a fight for the soul of open government and democratic accountability. The proposed changes threaten to erect a wall between the public and the information that belongs to it by right, hindering not only our understanding of our past but our ability to scrutinize our present and influence our future.With determination and hope for the future, even in the face of extremely annoying potential law changes…-your friends at Reclaim The Records
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📰 EXTRA, EXTRA! 📰Hi again from your genealogically-minded open data pals at Reclaim The Records! This is a quick end-of-the-year social media post to let you know that some of our recent (and future) work has been featured in the news this month, and we wanted to share that news with you in case you missed it. Because THIS NEWS IS FUN!Our acquisition and publication of more than five million Maryland birth, marriage, death, and naturalization records was covered in the Washington Post last week, and we couldn’t be prouder. Check out the article, with details about how our awesome intern Michael McCormick used the Maryland Public Information Act and pulled off an amazing open records win:"How genealogists got millions of Md. records online for all to see"www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/25/maryland-genealogical-records/We’ve been hearing from many of you over the past month about how these newly available-from-your-home records have helped you solve all kinds of family mysteries and break down brick walls in your research. (Yay!) Here’s to a new year that will hopefully see these records get fully indexed for the first time, and eventually turn into databases and hints that will help us all. We already have heard from one smaller genealogy website that has already started their own indexing project before this year is out, and we would not be surprised if some or all of the larger websites are working on their own plans right now…And if that’s the kind of thing that makes you happy? Then here we are, with an end-of-year appeal for your continued support, so that we can keep bringing awesome genealogical presents like this one online, free forever. But in lieu of a subscription — because we don’t offer subscriptions, because we don’t sell any data! — we’d be grateful for your help.reclaimtherecords.org/donate/BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. MUCH MUCH MORE!If you did read that Washington Post article closely, you might have also noticed some interesting references, with links, to a quietly long-running project that we hadn’t mentioned publicly.See, Maryland isn’t the only state archive where we at Reclaim The Records have been working on identifying and then freeing newly-digital historical records for unencumbered free public use. Not by a long shot…!Okay, ready for some more breaking news? CHECK THIS OUT:www.openrecords.pa.gov/Appeals/DocketSheet.cfm?docket=20222106That’s a link to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. One of our board members has quietly been embroiled in a legal fight with the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, more specifically the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), to get all of their digital files released to the public for free, too. Every digital image, every piece of text metadata. Births, death certificates, all kinds of goodies…Specifically, he asked the state archives for copies of anything that was scanned or indexed by Ancestry.com under the company’s contracts with PHMC going back to 2008. According to the text of the contracts, the state was supposed to have been given back copies of everything Ancestry scanned, as well as the metadata files they created from indexing the images. Despite that, there are currently NO freely downloadable and freely reusable copies of those crucial Pennsylvania public records as digital data (whether images or text metadata) available anywhere without usage restrictions or terms and conditions. One company alone holds the digital files.Well, we’d like to change that. Public records belong to the public, and when a federal, state, or local government archive signs a contract explicitly saying that the taxpayer-funded archive will receive any digital copies of any historical materials scanned and/or indexed by a third party vendor, well then those newly-made files then become public records, too.At least, that’s how we see it. And last year, although we didn’t announce it at the time, the ombudsman program at the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records saw it that way too, and ***ordered the state archive to turn over millions of those newly-digitized genealogical records (both the scanned images and text metadata) to the public within thirty days.***(wow! and here’s that link to that OOR ruling: www.openrecords.pa.gov/Appeals/DocketGetFile.cfm?id=112029&fbclid=IwAR3fEGL3HA1gqLJPjOCtPCOvPvh5Q… )And then things got really crazy.In an attempt to block the order to turn over the files, PHMC is now suing our board member, a genealogist, by name — and Ancestry.com is now submitting briefs in support of the state’s case. And they’re not just writing up an amicus curiae giving their opinions: Ancestry.com has now petitioned the Commonwealth Court to become a party in the case, a co-plaintiff in a suit against a genealogist who already won his open records case under a state’s Freedom of Information Law.In open records parlance, this trick is called a "reverse FOIA"; if someone reallllly doesn’t want to turn over records even though they have been ordered to do so, a government agency or even a third party implicated in the files could try to sue the requestor, turning the Freedom of Information or open records law on its head, using it against the public instead of against the powerful. It’s a rarely used and very gross tactic.Pennsylvania’s state FOI law is called the Right to Know Law (RTKL), not quite the same thing as federal FOIA, but it’s the same principle. And here, Ancestry.com (which is majority-owned by the private equity behemoth Blackstone and minority-owned by the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC) is joining with the state archives, using the argument that these public records about Pennsylvanians, which are already online on their own paywalled for-profit website, are somehow actually “confidential proprietary information” [sic], and that a release of the data in bulk under the OOR’s ruling in favor of the public would “cause substantial harm to the competitive position of [Ancestry]."We’ll have so, so much more to say about this ongoing case in the new year. You can only imagine how hard we’re biting our tongues right now. And we’re going to end the old year with some of the stories and editorials starting to come out about this unusual situation.Like this one, from Spotlight PA:📰 "Inside the Pa. court case pitting a genealogist against Ancestry.com" 📰www.spotlightpa.org/news/2023/12/ancestry-genealogy-pennsylvania-historical-records-court-fight/ And this editorial published earlier today by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:📰 "Who owns Pennsylvania’s historical records?" 📰triblive.com/opinion/editorial-who-owns-pennsylvanias-historical-records/Well, we know our opinion on the matter. And we’d like to hope you feel similarly!But it means our fight for open records — a fight not just against government archives, agencies, and libraries, but also now a few shameless 800-lb gorillas — is going to need more help than ever. Your donations, big or small, empower us to continue our fight for transparency and accessibility.And as always, the records we win are made totally free for public use. If you’re excited to see our wins like the recent one in Maryland, and ongoing projects like the news leaking out about our work in Pennsylvania, and a ridiculous number of stealth projects that we still haven’t shared publicly yet, we really hope you’ll consider making an end-of-the-year donation to help us continue this work.Here’s that link again:reclaimtherecords.org/donate/We’re immensely grateful for your continued support and belief in our mission. Together, let’s make 2024 a year of unprecedented access to historical records!See you back in your inbox in the new year!
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Reclaim The Records’ work with our intrepid intern Michael W. McCormick, to acquire millions of Maryland birth, marriage, death, and naturalization records from the Maryland State Archives and put them online for free public use (most of them now outside their building and firewall for the first time ever) wound up covered in the Washington Post today.
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