Please help us to Keep South Dakota researchable................ Hearing on Bill 41 will be held on Monday, January 24th , 2005 in committee at the State Capitol Building. Phyllis Knutson plans on driving up Monday morning if anyone wishes to drive up with her. Suggest that all of you who have not e-mailed Tom Dempster, do so before the hearing. As a reminder, the following is the letter sent out previously. Senate Bill 41, proposed by the Department of Health, has just been introduced into the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. This bill would eliminate access to South Dakota death, marriage, divorce, dissolution of marriage, and annulment records until 50 years have elapsed from the date of occurrence. Currently, access is easy at the county level to these public records. (Birth records access was restricted a few years ago by the legislature to 100 years after the occurrence.) We can all agree that state government officials should have public hearings or make an effort to conduct discussions with a broad range of citizens who will be impacted by new regulations and laws before bills are introduced in the legislature. In this case, no effort has been made by health department staff to seek Sioux Valley Genealogical Society members� opinions and concerns about the ramifications of the proposed restrictions on genealogical research. Nor has any effort been made to gather information from groups of genealogists around the state that would help in crafting a reasonable bill that will protect the citizenry without needlessly limiting genealogical research capabilities. If it is truly necessary to place these extreme limitations on records access, it would be easy for Health Department staff to explain this in a meeting with those of us seriously impeded by this action. If it is not necessary for the restrictions to be so stringent, then the law should be less restrictive. A little time to educate each other about our needs would be useful in crafting good legislation. If you would like to help stop this bill until the Health Department sets up the necessary public meetings to hear the concerns of genealogists and other members of the public, please log onto the SD state legislature site, http://legis.state.sd.us/index.cfm, go to Current session, Members, find Tom Dempster (chairman of the committee), click on his name, and either phone him or e-mail him, asking that this bill be tabled until citizen input is sought. Or check the list of members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, available at the website, and e-mail or phone them. You will find a copy of the bill (SB 41) at the website as well. There are some features that would be beneficial to genealogists. And the Health Department website has a new area for genealogy research. Check it out so your comments will not be entirely negative when you contact your legislator. Contact members of the committee immediately, as Senate Bill 41 will be heard in the committee very soon. Sincerely, For the Board Rosemary Draeger President Sioux Valley Genealogical Society Claire M. Grant SVGS board Member --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.