Washington Vital Records >From "The Legal Genealogist" today _http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/11/08/washington-public-records-t hreatened/_ (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/11/08/washington-public-records-threatened/) Here we go again. Yet another attack on access to records — yet another assault on the right to the free flow of information. (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/components/com_wordpress/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Wash.records.jpg) This time, it’s in Washington State, where the Department of Health wants to take records that are now public and readily accessible and close them. Washington is and has long been an open records state; birth, marriage, death and divorce records and many other types of genealogically-useful records are readily available for genealogical and other research. Now the Health Department wants to close them. If its proposal is accepted, birth records would be closed for 125 years, and all other vital records for 50 years ... judiscot@gmail.com "Puzzles of the Past" _http://puzzlesofthepast.blogspot.com/_ (http://puzzlesofthepast.blogspot.com/) What do you hold so close to your own circle of life that you would not put a price on it? What would it be for you? For me, it is the mountains and the people of Appalachia.” Larry Gibson, Keeper of the Mountains