There has been activity in the NJ Assembly on the vital records access bill, A1390. On Monday, 5/22, the bill passed the State Assembly with Amendments from the floor. The gist of the matter is that they made the changes we all asked to have included! The bill, as passed, essentially says that the State Registrar can supply a "certification" [also known as an "informational copy", rather than a "certified copy"] of any vital record "after 80 years have elapsed in the case of birth records and 50 years have elapsed in the case of marriage records and 40 years have elapsed in the case of death records." This may also apply, by extension, to vital records offices at the local level. However, I am not a lawyer (or a legislator <g>) and so can't say this for sure! This is the text that we had asked them to add so that we can still access the majority of vital records. The years we chose are the same years that the Dept of Health was already using as their "genealogical records", which we believed would make the change easier to accept. In addition, they did take out the clause that said "An Applicant shall be required to ... not transfer, sell, share, reproduce or otherwise disclose the information to another party." So, we can legitimately go about our genealogy "business" and share the information with family members, etc. They left in the part that said the applicant has to use the information for the purposes they say on the application and maintain the information in a secure manner. However, I don't think this poses a problem for genealogical purposes. Genealogy is an accepted reason to request a record and don't we all want to keep our hard-won vital records in a safe place? There is still a bit of a problem with some language in the bill and this needs to be addressed in the Senate. The bill, as worded, says that "Vital records shall not be deemed to be a public or government record ..." The problem with this is that they seem to be trying to have it both ways - if they aren't a government record, let alone a public record, then how is it that the government is creating them, maintaining them, and limiting (or providing) access to them? The Senate will need to fix that! At any rate - the bill, as passed, is better than it was to start with - and I think we are no worse off than we were before! It can still be a better bill and we will find out how to proceed to ask the Senate to improve their version of the bill. If the Senate can pass a better version, then it goes back to the Assembly for another round. I think overall "Round One" goes to genealogists everywhere and we greatly appreciate all your efforts and contacts and concerns. We will keep the lists informed as we move into "Round Two" (the Senate version.) We hope that you will be willing to keep working with us on this issue to keep open access to NJ vital records. Thanks to one and all for your help and support in this! Joan M. Lowry, President Genealogical Society of New Jersey mailto:membership@gsnj.org website: www.gsnj.org