GENEALOGICAL POWER," by Dr. John Daly EDITOR'S NOTE: In the wake of last week's announcement in the Daily News of the Illinois State Archives putting its Statewide Marriage Index online, I have seen a flurry of messages asking, "Why can't they do that in my state?" On 27 April 1999, I attended a meeting at the home of Loretto Szucs, Vice President of Publishing for Ancestry.com. In attendance were thirty genealogical leaders from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. The guest of honor was Dr. John Daly, Director of the Illinois State Archives who spoke about the article he wrote for the May/June 1999 issue of "Ancestry" Magazine titled "Genealogical Power." Dr. Daly reminded family historians that they are the principal users of public archives in the United States, and as such should wield their power to shape their own destiny. The article is being reprinted below, and will also be available online at:� http://www.ancestry.com/magazine/articles/genpower.htm The following article was adapted from a speech given by Dr. John Daly, Director of the Illinois State Archives, at the Illinois State Genealogical Society Conference, 23 October 1998. I should begin by stating that I am writing not as a genealogist, but as a working archivist. My opinions arise from what I see of genealogists from that viewpoint and, thereby, what I see as strategic courses useful to genealogists. By the term "genealogical power," I mean the leverage that genealogists and family historians have upon public archival agencies in the United States--or the power that they should exercise as the overwhelming majority of users of those archives. Archimedes said, regarding the simple yet powerful tool, the lever, "Give me but a point on which to stand and with it I could move the earth itself." Family historians need a point to stand upon in order to utilize the power of the lever that they hold. I will explain what I mean by this. Archives are not natural features of American society. They have never grown normally out of administrative practice in business corporations, universities, or out of governments at the national, state, county, or city level. In the event that anyone assumes that public archives have always existed in the United States, please recall that for one hundred and forty-five years after the establishment of the federal government in 1789, there was no such institution as the National Archives of the United States. No business archives existed until the 1940s, no university archives until the 1960s, and the archives of museums and other cultural institutions did not begin to be formed until after the bicentennial observation of 1976. The evidence for this neglect is widespread, but I will not belabor it. Only a few illustrations are worthwhile. When George Washington left the office of the presidency in 1797, he offered his papers to the care of Congress as property of the nation. Congress reacted with indifference and no president offered his files to the government's care again until Franklin Roosevelt. In 1810 a federal report noted that U.S. public records were in "a state of�disorder�neither safe nor convenient nor honorable to the nation." In the early 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville observed that among Americans, "nobody bothers about what was done before his time�. No archives are formed; no documents are brought together, even when it would be easy to do so." But if there was for so long no public governmental interest in archival agencies in the United States, how did those archives come to be created? Public archives in America grew from demands by groups outside of official administrative structures. According to Ernst Posner, the basis of American archival development was completely "a response to the� insistently presented demands of the scholarly world." In this case we must give the fullest credit to the American Historical Association and its membership. Without the persistent efforts of that organization, which began over one hundred years ago in 1893 and culminated in 1934, we would not have the National Archives today or any of the state archives. The American Legion offered crucial support to the movement as well, representing yet another outside interest that demanded the establishment of public archival services. But something happened. The American Historical Association, which had basically founded the National Archives and state archives, withdrew from the field of archival activity. I realize this is an extreme statement for me to make, but it is true in a relative sense. The earliest public clientele of the National Archives and state archives, their justification and support, were chiefly professional historians, but there are not many of them. Over the past sixty years, from 1936 to 1996, approximately 38,000 doctoral degrees in history were awarded in the United States. Of that amount, perhaps a third are now retired from active work. Even if all of the academic historical researchers now in practice or in university training made the fullest use of public archival depositories in the United States, they could not come close to representing a substantial percentage of the persons who consult those depositories year after year. Family historians and genealogists have replaced academic researchers as the principal users of public archives in the United States. The combined memberships of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians today is 28,000. A study published in American Demographics in December 1995 cited that 113 million Americans have some interest in genealogy, and that 19 million have a strong working interest in the field. An unacknowledged user study of the National Archives and its Suitland facility for 1991 cited 370,000 "user visits" of which 54% to 80% were devoted to family history and 16% to 20% to academic studies. The Newberry Library of Chicago found that 60% of all the reference services it provides are devoted to genealogy.� In 1998 the Illinois State Archives delivered 840,000 reference activities of which at least 80% related to family history. If the administrators of public archives in the United States had to rely upon the use of archives by academic researchers alone to justify the existence of archives, they would find it extremely difficult to do so. So what can, or should, genealogists do about these clear facts? How can they use them as the "point on which to stand" to put to work the leverage of the overwhelming client figures that they represent? Allow me to make a few suggestions. 1. Go on strike; stop going to the archives. What would happen? Reports to Congress would show that use of the National Archives had plummeted 50% to 80% percent. I would have to report to the Illinois Secretary of State that use of Illinois state archives has dropped by 85%. The same effect would occur at almost every state, county, and city archives in the United States. I admit this is a rash piece of advice, and unworkable, but view it as simply a graphic illustration of the power genealogists have in their hands to affect the policies and practices of public archives in the United States. 2. Emphasize the term family history for your work. Genealogy is a word that has unfortunate echoes in the popular American mind. But the word "history" is favored by newspaper writers, tourism promoters, editorial columnists, and community leaders. It can stampede American candidates for public office. I found it useful and effective that the 1998 FGS meeting in Cincinnati was entitled, "Immigrant Dreams: The Settlement of America." These sorts of terms talk more directly to more citizens. 3. Demand better hours of access to archives. You represent a public who wishes to consult public records in a public building supported by public tax dollars. You have replaced scholars as archives' clientele. Yet archives' reading rooms are still open chiefly at hours that serve the convenience of scholars or the archives' staff, but not yours. Public libraries have extended their hours beyond 9 to 5. Drivers license facilities are open on evenings and on Saturdays and Sundays as well. Even banks have changed their old limited hours to accommodate the public. Why not archives as well? 4. Challenge the fees for copies of records. Most of the costs you are charged for copies of records are designed chiefly to prevent you from asking for them. You can defy any agency to produce a valid cost study that would justify those charges. A rationale for them once existed when, if you requested a record, a clerk had to stop other work for an appreciable time to make one by hand. But in the world of copiers those charges are anachronistic. Notify your archivist that fees should be revised drastically or scrapped completely. 5. Do not waste efforts in support of open records legislation. This may appear to be contradictory advice, but I give it from the viewpoint of an archivist, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Such laws have always promised more than they deliver, and their existence is delusory enough to sidetrack or delay more effective methods that family historians may take to advance their interests. Much more might be said on this subject, but I will leave it at only this: ask yourself when heralded Freedom of Information Acts or Open Records Laws have ever really been of assistance to researchers in gaining necessary information from archives, court houses, or vital records offices. Anyone reading this article understands that the individual issues I have discussed are only part of the broader problem--public agencies' seemingly inherent bias against responding to requests by the public for access to records. Government agencies are fertile with reasons why citizens can not have access to information. And the evil is rooted more deeply in the fundamental attitudes of officeholders, even those at the most responsible levels. The Archives Listserv recently presented an account in the Houston Chronicle's September 1998 coverage of Texas investigative hearings concerning Texas' Open Records Act. The Act was passed in 1983 and is regarded as one of the better examples of such laws. Committee members found that, although the law had been in effect for fifteen years, there was a "prevalent attitude among government employees . . . that the law requiring them to [convey] information is a nuisance, a bother, and expense that bureaucrats quite often think they just shouldn't have to deal with." The attitude was also found to exist among Texas city attorneys, the attorney general's office, and state judges themselves. 6. Develop a new plan around these problems if the suggestions above do not succeed. The most effective path is to promote the digitization of public records and their availability as Internet databases. Unfortunately, digitization has become an all-purpose excuse by too many public officials-hasn't the National Archives promised that it will magically resolve the problems that will follow the closing of its regional archives? But this path can be followed, and some agencies are already doing so. State archives have made death records, federal land sale records, and Civil War service records digitally available and federal efforts like those of the Bureau of Land Management and the Civil War Project are following suit. Other huge databases that were created for internal departmental uses years ago are also becoming available; the compiling and editing of those resources has already been completed and they could be quickly and cheaply made available electronically. Best of all, this method would completely bypass the ingrained bureaucratic obstinacy against records access I outlined above. If it is fashioned correctly, agency officials would not even know that the public is gaining information via the privacy of their own computers. As well, it would make most of the other advice I have given you unnecessary. Why should you have to care about what hours archives reference rooms are open? Why should you have to care about fees for copies if you need only click on the print icon? 7. Take your demands for better access to public records sources above the heads of archivists themselves--to governors, secretaries of state, and members of congress. Do not be hesitant when you approach these officers. Point out to them the Time article of 13 July 1998 on family history research. Tell them that Web sites like Ancestry.com provide online genealogical databases that thousands of family historians search each day. Point out that family historians form the vast bulk of the consumers, clients, and market demand that justify and support the entire enterprise of public archives activity in the United States. Point out that persons with family history interest represent 113 million American citizens, 113 million consumers, 113 million letter writers, and 113 million votes. This, I think, is the point upon which genealogists should stand, and I wish them the greatest success. ____________________________________________________________________ Dr. John Daly, the Director of the Illinois State Archives since 1974, has an MA in English Literature, and an MA and Ph.D. in American History. He is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists, and has received several awards and commendations from that organization, including the Distinguished Service Award in 1982. Dr. Daly has also received awards from the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and the Illinois State Genealogical Society. Juliana Smith, Editor, Ancestry Daily News Jennifer Browning, Associate Editor Please feel free to circulate this newsletter to other genealogy enthusiasts! 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