Scott Humphrey wrote "pending legislation (soon to reach a vote) in the state of Massachusetts (MA) that would restrict access to all birth records since 1915 and all marriage & death records since 1955." Just a comment - In today's climate of identity theft such a limit is not unreasonable. Someone born in 1915 would be 91, which is not impossible in this day and age. We quite often see items on the news, or other programmes, of someone getting hold of a birth certificate and using it to set up a whole new persona with all the requisite pieces of official paper to get work and or benefits from the state illegally. As far as I am aware in Australia you cannot get birth details for those born after 1905 and marriage details for marriages after 1955 (definitely sure about New South Wales). What is important is that other sources of information are not restricted to unreasonably early dates. I know that this first piece of legislation may be seen as the start of a slippery slope but so long as we are all vigilant then we should be able to stop future legislation but in the case of the current legislation I can't see an argument against it - I don't want to be 'virtually' cloned. Gill Spooner