People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access (PaHR-Access)
Frequently
Asked Questions
- What's The Cost And Who Is Going To Pay For This?
- Why Does The Law Have To Be Changed?
- Doesn't The Open Records Law Make It Easier To Get Death Records?
- Can't People Already Easily Get These Records?
- Won't The Pennsylvania Division Of Vital Records Lose Money?
- What About Birth Certificates?
- Modernizing the Division of Vital Records
- Do We Really Need To Write To More Than One Person?
- How Do I Go About Meeting With A State Legislator?
- How Can Historical And Genealogy Organizations Help?
- Can Out-OF-State Residents Get Involved?
- Can This Effort Really Succeed?
What about privacy?
While we understand the concerns about privacy there is no practical reason these records should be kept restricted indefinitely. At some point public records can be considered old enough it shouldn’t matter who sees them. Whether it is 25, 50, 100 or 200 years is a matter of debate. We suggest a wait of 50 years is long enough (see Why 50 Years?). From 1893-1905 the counties of Pennsylvania registered deaths (including cause of death). These records have always been open to the public with no concerns about privacy. If death records from 1893-1905 don’t provoke such concerns why should death records from say 1906, 1907 or 1908? If these years don’t then it is really a matter of which year would.
If it is a matter of privacy in general there have always been public records that are quite more revealing. For example after estate records are filed at county courthouses in Pennsylvania, the records are immediately open to the public and contains, not only a person’s name, date of death, etc., but also detailed information about a person's wealth and property. The same is true of marriage records, property taxes and deeds. There is no moratorium or waiting period to view these records. In fact property tax records are already available online The federal census is released after 72 years, but it contains information on people who are still alive. Also there are already numerous other records available online that are far more worrisome than our proposal could ever be. Here we are asking to see the death record of people who have been dead at least 50 years.
What invokes the greatest concern about privacy when it comes to death certificates is the cause of death. All the other information such as burial place, date of death, date of birth, spouse's name, parents' names, where they were born, place of residence or the name of the informant, is rather innocuous and no more revealing than any other information found in obituaries or on a large number of genealogy websites. Many states have no restrictions on who can obtain a death certificate. For some states, such as California, Florida, Texas, and so on, information from state death, marriage, divorce and even birth records that is less than 20 years old can be found on the Internet.
The cause of death could be redacted from the scanned images of the death certificates, but redacting the cause of death on all certificates would not allow a person to learn their family medical history. However, as a possible alternative, the causes of death that invoke greatest concern (such as suicide, etc.) could be redacted. Although interestingly in the 40 states in which death certificates are or eventually become open records this is not an issue.
Genealogy, family history, tracing ones ancestry are all about remembering people who almost never appear in the history books. Having easier access to these records, rather than restricting them indefinitely, helps us to remember and learn more about those who came before us. Without people doing and being able to do this kind of research the vast majority of people who ever lived would be lost to history. Being overly concerned about privacy relegates those in the past, including many close relatives, to obscurity.
What about identity theft?
A death certificate itself cannot be used to steal identity, only some of the information found on it. Any misuse of information from an online death certificate database could be verified the using the same database. The Social Security Death Master File (with names, dates, places and numbers, and better known as the Social Security Death Index), which is updated weekly, is a death verification database used to proactively thwart identity theft and fraud. We understand government agencies, banks, insurance and credit card companies use it all the time to verify deaths and to stop the misuse of a deceased person's Social Security number.
For similar reasons we suggest modernizing the Division of Vital Records by having all of Pennsylvania's birth and death certificates be put into a database that could be used by law enforcement and government agencies for the purpose of verifying deaths and to help proactively stop the stealing of identities of deceased persons (known as ghosting). Missouri state law enforcement has used that state's older death certificate database for this purpose. See Modernizing the Division of Vital Records
Having a database of all of Pennsylvania's death certificates would actually be in accordance with Federal Law PL 108-458, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the Social Security Administration and others, to award grants to States to assist them in computerizing their birth and death records, to develop the capability to match birth and death records within and among States, and to note the fact of death on birth certificates of deceased persons. This is done to stop a person from misusing the birth certificate of a deceased person.
We also suggest, as part of this effort to bring Pennsylvania into the 21st Century, the adoption of an Electronic Death Registration System like those already in use in California, New York, Texas, and several other states. In this way all future death certificates would be electronic and instantly on file at the Division of Vital Records and allow for the immediate processing of a death event (see next paragraph).
As we understand it the greatest danger of ghosting is in the first few days to months after a person has died. Identity-thieves read obituaries and use the information to obtain credit cards, etc. Because the victims are deceased it is often quite some time before the deceptions are discovered. For this reason the experts strongly recommend copies of the death certificate be sent to the major credit bureaus as quickly as possible (after all they don’t know a person is deceased until someone tells them).
We need to get away from the naïve belief that if we limit the amount of information getting out there we will minimize the chances of identity theft. Given the nature of the Internet this is little more than crossing our fingers as more and more information is forever being added from multiple and sometimes unknown sources. We need to make it so that no matter how much information identity thieves may have on deceased persons it will do them absolutely no good. The easier it is to verify deaths the harder it will be for the deceased to have their identities stolen.
Why 50 years?
General public access to death certificates varies considerably from state to state. While the details vary only nine other states have restricted access to death certificates like Pennsylvania (that is only certain persons may obtain a copy of a death certificate regardless of how long ago the person died). One state restricts general public access to death records after 1948. Sixteen states restrict general public access for the first 50 years and some more have restrictions varying from 40 years to 2 years, while fifteen states have no general public access restrictions. Some states differentiate between “certified” or "authentic" and "informational" or “for-information-only” copies for legal purposes, but otherwise have few if any restrictions.
Public opinion similarly varies from wanting a waiting period of at least 100 years to why restrict them at all. Fifty years seems to be about the average and the most common. It is a reasonable period to address privacy concerns but is not too strict by requiring an unduly long moratorium before these records can be used by the public.
In the publication by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Statistics titled "Model State Vital Statistics Act and Regulations" (DHHS publication No. 95-1115), which is still enforce, is this recommended standard in the section called "Regulation 13. Disclosure of Records":
"When 100 years have elapsed after the date of birth, or 50 years have elapsed after the date of death, marriage, or (divorce, dissolution of marriage, or annulment), such records in the custody of the State Registrar shall become available to any person upon submission of an application containing sufficient information to locate the record".
What's The Cost And Who Is
Going To Pay For This?
All of the states that already have scanned copies of their older death certificates online had most of the work done by volunteers usually through the Genealogy Society of Utah. Because of this, the cost to the taxpayer was minimal and consisted of primarily the cost of setting up the in-house computer systems to store the data. Our hope is to do the same with Pennsylvania. We are in contact with the Genealogy Society of Utah which is very interested in this cause. They have sent us a proposal letter which clearly states they will do the work at no charge as long as they are allowed to have a copy of the data for their own genealogical use.
Also federal grants may be obtained under Federal Law 108-458, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the Social Security Administration and others, to award grants to States to assist them in computerizing their birth and death records, to develop the capability to match birth and death records within and among States, and to note the fact of death on birth certificates of deceased persons.
Since most of the data extraction has already been done for death records since 1960 and the Genealogy Society of Utah is willing to do the work on the death records from before 1960 at no cost to the taxpayer the cost to Pennsylvania would be a fraction of what it would otherwise. The vast majority of the work that would still have to be done would involve scanning the certificates and attaching the data to the images. Commercially it costs approximately between 1 to 2.5 cents per image and 10 cents per data extraction.
Whether or not these records are made available online these historic records can still be made open to the general public and indexes made publicly available as has been done in most states.
Why does the law have to be changed?
Currently Pennsylvania statute prohibits the release of confidential vital records to the public regardless of how old the records may be. The relevant sections of the Pennsylvania Vital Statistics Law of 1953 states:
35 P.S. § 450.801. The vital statistics records of the department and of the local registrars shall not be open to public inspection except as authorized by the provisions of this act...Neither the department nor local registrars shall issue copies of or disclose any vital statistics record or part thereof created under the pro vision of this or prior acts except in compliance with the provisions of this act...
35 P.S. § 450.804...[T]he department shall issue certified copies of
or disclose a vital statistics record or part thereof if an officer of the
department designated by the Secretary of Health finds that the applicant
therefore has a direct interest in the content of the record and that the
information contained therein is necessary for the determination of personal or
property rights.
As a letter received from the
Pennsylvania Department of Health states:
Therefore,
the Department of Health may not release for public access any record, parts
thereof, or listings the Department creates from such records without being in
violation of the Act. The General Assembly, to ensure compliance, included
criminal provisions for unauthorized disclosure of information.
Our view is that at some point these records should be considered old enough to be considered historical records open to the public for research. Even having an online index for of Pennsylvania’s death certificates requires a change in the law regardless of how old the death certificates are. Except for Missouri, all the other states which have online death certificate databases didn’t have to change their laws because their older death certificates automatically became open public records after a certain number of years (usually 50 years).
Doesn't The Open Records Law Make It Easier To Get Death Records?
While this new law changes Pennsylvania from being one of the worst states on access to government records to being one of the better ones it does not change the restricted status of state birth and death records one bit. This law only affects those records that are not specifically restricted by law. In other words those records which are not specifically restricted by law are to be considered open records and open to examination by the public. Pennsylvania state birth and death records are unquestionably restricted by existing law.
The Open Records Law does help in it that changes the general attitude towards having much easier and more open access to records held by the state government but as indicated it does not make it any easier to get access to state birth and death records. We still need to push for a change in the Vital Records Law.
Can’t people already easily get these
records?
Vital Records regulations require the requester to have a direct relationship to the deceased in order to obtain a copy of a death certificate. Often a requester doesn’t know if the person is related and wants the death certificate to find out. This is especially true when compiling family histories and trying to find the descendents of a common ancestor. Too often the only place the information needed to establish the relationship can only be found is on the death certificate. The information a requester is expected to supply to obtain a death certificate (such as the date and place of death) is quite often the very information a requester is looking for and the very reason for wanting a death certificate in the first place. To say the least the process is paradoxical and cumbersome.
Many of us have experienced the frustration of either being told the death certificate could not be found or being sent the wrong certificate. Yes, a requester can pay $34 for an extended search of up to a ten year window with the charge of an additional $25 for each extension to that search window. To say the least this is quite costly to the requester and very time consuming for the Division of Vital Records. Sadly it doesn’t always result in a successful search and the fee is not refunded.
Also Pennsylvania doesn’t have a publicly accessible index to see if the person even died in Pennsylvania. So it becomes an expensive guessing game that doesn’t always result in finding a death certificate even when the person actually died in Pennsylvania.
While obituaries contain much of the same information a researcher is looking for they are often no easier to find and sometimes cannot be found. This is especially true of deaths from the early 1900's. Even when an obituary is found it doesn't always contain all the important information that can be found on a death certificate particularly the parents' names and especially the mother's maiden name. This is extremely true of obituaries from the early 1900's. Very often the death certificate is the only place this information can be found.
Having the kind of death certificate database we are proposing for Pennsylvania would be light years ahead of the current system of finding death certificates. We can say this because that is exactly what it is like to use similar databases in states that have already done this.
An example of how much more these records would be used if they were open to the public, according to what we have learned from the Missouri State Archives, before setting up their online database, their states Vital Records Division received approximately 5,000 requests per year for death certificates more than 50 years old. In the first 18 months after setting up their online database for older death certificates they had counted 8.8 million searches for death certificates. We have no doubt if Pennsylvania had such a database it would be several times more popular and utilized.
Won’t the Pennsylvania Division of Vital
Records lose money?
It is not clear just how much “profit” Vital Records makes on each death record request it fills. The fees paid probably just cover their costs. However, we believe the requests for death certificates before 1960, because of the archaic manner in which these requests must be filled, are the most time consuming requests for them to fill and therefore the most costly. By relieving Vital Records of having to fill these requests it could then do what it needs to do and concentrate on newer business rather than acting as an archive for old vital records. Besides we shouldn’t keep Pennsylvania from going into the 21st century because some people what to keep doing things in the same old antiquated and costly way as was first started in 1906.
Having a publicly accessible online index for death certificates less than 50 years old (containing only limited information such as the name and date of death) would actually increase the number of requests for that time period. This is because the public would be able to find what they want so much more easily and with much less guessing they would more likely send in more requests for death certificates.
What about birth certificates?
Many people may wonder why this effort doesn't directly include the older Pennsylvania state birth certificates. In all likelihood there would be a 100 year moratorium (waiting period) to have birth records become open to the general public. Since this effort was started in August of 2007 that would have given us just 1906 to have available online. Rather than having so few records draw extra unwanted opposition we decided to concentrate on death records only.
However, Senate Bill 1296 introduced by State Senator Robert D. Robbins includes having birth records becoming open records after 75 years. The bill being circulated by State Senator Robert C. Wondering includes having birth records open records after 100 years. How this will play out is not known.
But everyone should absolutely feel free to let Governor Rendell and the Pennsylvania State Legislature they would like to see the oldest state birth records become open records as well. However, some no doubt will be concerned for privacy and identity theft reasons about having the birth certificates of people who are still alive available online even if they are at least 75 or even 100 years old. Perhaps the solution would then be to allow only those birth certificates that are are at least 75 or 100 years old and the persons have been confirmed as deceased to become open records. Interestingly other states, including those who have very short or even no waiting period have not had such concerns.
Access varies considerably from state to state and many states differentiate between legal and for information-purposes-only copies. Only twelve other states have restricted access to birth certificates like Pennsylvania (that is only certain persons may obtain a copy of a birth certificate regardless of how long ago the person was born or even if the person is now deceased). Many of the rest have moratoriums ranging from 30 to 125 years with the most common waiting period being 100 years while a number of states have no general public access restrictions.
modernizing the Division of Vital records
While our main objective is to have vastly greater access to the older state death certificates we are suggesting modernizing the Division of Vital Records by having all of Pennsylvania's birth and death certificates put into a database. The advantages of doing so would be many and therefore would have a much broader appeal and receive much greater support especially from those who are uninterested in history or genealogy and are mostly concerned about identity theft and the costs:
1) The Division of Vital Records would be able to get away from the antiquated and costly process of searching and filling each and every request manually. With few exceptions, each request could be filled at a staffer’s work station and in a fraction of the time. This would be especially true for the older death certificates because there is no comprehensive index for them.
2) Law enforcement and government agencies would be able to proactively use this same database for death verification much the same way the online Social Security Death Master File is used to thwart identity theft of deceased persons. By punching in a name and birth date into the database search engine it can be instantly determined if an imposter has stolen a deceased person’s identity. This would be in keeping with the Federal Law PL-108-458, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which provides grants to the states to computerize their birth and death records for much the reasons.
3) Genealogists, historians, professors, and researchers would be able utilize the information contained in these historical records in a way that is light years removed from the current limited access system. However, the general public would still only have access to those records that would become open records. Should a person wish to have a birth or death record that is not an open record they would still have to apply to the PA Division of Vital Records and meet the same requirements currently in place in order to obtain those records. Those who would need a certified copy, regardless of how old the record is, would only be able to obtain a certified copy through the PA Division of Vital Records and only copies issued by PA Division of Vital Records would be considered legal copies.
As part of this effort to bring Pennsylvania into the 21st Century, the adoption of an Electronic Death Registration System like those already in use in California, New York, Texas, and several other states. In this way all future death certificates would be electronic and instantly on file at the Division of Vital Records and allow for the immediate processing of a death event .
The greatest cost in computerizing Pennsylvania birth and death records is data extraction. As indicated earlier the birth records since 1921 and the death records since 1960 have already had data extracted and put into a database. To complete this computerization would require scanning the records and complete any data extraction. Scanning the records is a relatively inexpensive process. With the Genealogy Society of Utah willing to do the work at no cost to the Pennsylvania taxpayer for any records they can keep a copy of the data for their own genealogical use it will make computerizing the Commonwealth's birth and death records considerably less than it would otherwise. See What's the cost and who is going to pay for this?
On April 25th State Senator Rob Wonderling introduced his comprehensive vital records bill (S.B. 1378). This bill, which we strongly support, reflects this modernization by calling for computerizing Pennsylvania state vital records; birth certificates over 100 years old and death certificates over 50 years old to become open records and to have them online; and establishing an online index (and only an index with minimal information) of death records over 2 years old. It is designed to modernize the Division of Vital Records, proactively help stop the identity theft of deceased persons and allow for vastly greater use of the oldest state birth and the older state death records by the public.
The following 27 state senators are cosponsors: Gibson Armstrong, Lisa Baker, Lisa Boscola, Pat Browne, Michael Brubaker, Andrew E. Dinniman, Jane Earll, Edwin Erickson, Mike Folmer, John Gordner, Shirley Kitchen, Richard A Kasunic, Roger A. Madigan, Jane Clare Orie, John Pippy, James Rhoades, Robert Robbins, Joseph B. Scarnati, Patricia H. Vance, Leanna Washington, Michael Waugh, Donald C. White, Mary Jo White, Anthony Williams, Constance H. Williams, Rob Wonderling and John N. Wozniak. In case you are wondering there are a total of 50 Pennsylvania state senators. Click here to see this bill.
On May 14th, 2008 State Representative Richard Grucela introduced a companion bill (HB 2543) to Senator Wonderling's comprehensive vital records bill (SB 1378). Click here to see this bill.
Here is the current list of the 55 Pennsylvania state representatives who are cosponsors: William Adolph, Bob Bastian, John Bear, Robert Belfanti, Lisa Bennington, Karen Beyer, Thomas Blackwell, Karen Boback, Joseph Brennan, Thomas Caltagirone, Steven Cappelli, Mike Carroll, James Cox, Tom Creighton, Lawrence Curry, Bryan Cutler, Craig Dally, Dan Frankel, Robert Freeman, Richard Geist, Camille George, Richard Grucella, Gary Haluska, Ted Harhai Julie Harhart, Art Hershey, John Hornaman, Thaddeus Kirkland, Nick Kotik, Tim Mahoney, Jennifer Mann, Keith McCall, Tony Melio, Ron Miller, Duane Milne, John Payne, Merle Phillips, Thomas J. Quigley, Harry Readshaw, Douglas G. Reichley, Carole Rubley, Dante Santoni, Steve Samuelson, Stan Saylor, John J. Siptroth, Matthew Smith, Curtis G. Sonney, Jerry Stern, Randy Vulakovich, Chelsa Wagner, Katharine Watson, Jesse White, Edward Wojnaroski, Rosita Youngblood, John Yudichak. In case you are wondering there are a total of 203 Pennsylvania state representatives.
Do we really need to write to more
than one person?
Please don’t assume the Governor, your state representative and state senator share and compare the letters and messages they receive (especially from whom they receive them from). Because of this writing to one is not the same as writing to the others. We suggest you write to all three so that all three know of your support for this cause. Otherwise only the person you write to will know of your support. The more letters and messages they each personally receive actually makes it easier for them to support and vote for this cause. Conversely the fewer letters and messages they each receive the harder it is for a legislator to know if the public supports this cause, especially if he or she doesn’t know much about the issue.
There is no reason you can’t use the same message for each person. It is just a matter of changing the addressee information including the salutation (i.e. Dear ____) for each message or letter.
HOW DO I GO ABOUT MEETING WITH A STATE LEGISLATOR?
Meeting with a state legislator is much easier than what most people think and it has by far the greatest impact of anything you can do. With few exceptions state legislators are usually quite willing to meet with citizens and are easy talk to (especially in an election year). You normally have to make an appointment which may be as much as a month away. Unfortunately many legislators will only make appointments for during working hours although some may make an exception and make a weekend or evening appointment. We suggest taking as many people with you as you can. It would be more impressive and easier for the legislator to meet with a number of people at one time rather than having several individual meetings.
We suggest downloading and printing out the Handout. It gives the legislator something to refer to so they don’t have to try to remember everything. And take a copy along for yourself so you have a list of talking points. The Handout also has a link to another webpage designed especially for them where they can find additional information including what organizations and legislators have already endorsed this cause (found under Progress Report). Be sure to talk about why you like this idea and what impact the current system has on you personally.
As with any politician be prepared for a certain amount of lip service and vague commitments. If they are clearly willing to say they support the cause of having much greater access to Pennsylvania's older state death records and to have them accessible online please let us know (timarg@rcn.com). We will add their name to the Progress Report. Either way we are interested in how the meetings go and the legislators' reactions. If you would like some help in meeting with a state legislator feel free to contact us.
HOW CAN HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGY Organizations HELP?
Many of the state legislators we have spoken with have told us that support for this cause from institutions and organizations would carry a lot of weight. We are actively seeking the endorsement of such organizations regardless of size to show this cause has widespread support. If you are a member of any these groups or live in the area they cover we suggest you encourage them to endorse this cause. The more they hear from their members the more likely they are to endorse this cause.
To reflect this endorsement we ask that these organizations write at least three letters, one to Governor Rendell, one to at least one local state representative and one to at least one local state senator. In this way at least one member in each house of the state legislature and the governor will know of the organization's support for this cause. Ideally, all the state legislators in a given area, such as in a county, should be written to since they all represent that county or area. Please don’t assume the Governor, the state representatives and state senators share and compare the letters and messages they receive (especially from whom they receive them from). Of course the same message could be used for all letters. Please be sure to change the addressee information including the salutation (i.e. Dear ____) for each letter. Another very good approach would be to include all of their names on one letter and send each a copy.
The core message in these letters should be to have much greater access to Pennsylvania's older state death records and to have them accessible online. Otherwise how these letters are written is entirely up to the organization (although feel free to contact us for help in writing these letters timarg@rcn.com). You may want to include information about membership numbers and area covered. We do not ask for an endorsement for PaHR-Access although organizations are free to mention us but are not at all required to do so. We do ask that we be sent a copy of at least one of the letters be sent to us so we can keep track of the organizations that have endorsed this cause. An email copy would be fine.
Organizations can also mention this cause in their newsletter and providing a link to or information about this website in their newsletter would be most especially helpful. Some organizations have included a link to our website on their website.
Some organizations are concerned that because they are 501(c)(3) non-profit they are not allowed to support any issue, cause or legislation or be in any way seen as "lobbying" or taking a "political stand". This is not the case. Such organizations can and do support issues and legislation and can ask their members to do the same, especially legislation or issues that are to the benefit of the organization and its members. To violate its status as a 501(c)(3) an organization would have to do considerably more write a few letters of support for a cause. For an overview of the facts go to: Top Ten Myths about 501(c)(3) Lobbying and Political Activity
Can out-of-state residents get
involved?
Absolutely! Letters to Governor Rendell from out-of-state residents will let him know the interest and pride that out-of-state residents have in Pennsylvania. This is especially true when a number of people come or would come to Pennsylvania to learn more about their Pennsylvania Heritage. As far as we are concerned, anyone who would like to see these older Pennsylvania death records become available online can get involved no matter where they live.
Is there a time limit?
None at all. This isn’t going to happen overnight, but please don’t wait to send messages, write letters, sign or start a petition, or visit a state legislator. We are hoping the Pennsylvania State Government will receive a stream of letters, messages, petitions, and visits until this becomes a reality and also that they will realize just how much support there is for this cause. For this reason it is very important to send your own letters, etc. and to spread the word of this cause to many other people as you can. The more noise we make the more likely this is to happen.
Even once legislation is introduced a continuing stream of letters, etc to the Pennsylvania state government officials will help to push it along and to convince Governor Rendell and unsure legislators to favor this cause. Do nothing and nothing is likely to happen.
Can this effort really succeed?
Yes, it can. This is very much a state wide and even a multi-state effort. We have been in contact with over 300 organizations and institutions involved in history and genealogy throughout Pennsylvania and even a few outside of Pennsylvania. We have heard from people throughout the Pennsylvania and the Nation and even a few Americans living aboard.
We have also been trying to spread word of this cause to everyone we can and we ask you to do the same. The more people we can get involved and the more messages, letters, etc. they send to the Pennsylvania State Government officials, especially from throughout the Commonwealth as well as from out-of-state, the more likely this is to happen. When someone asks how will what I do make any difference, we ask how will doing nothing help? The more noise we make about this the more likely they are to hear us. Each and every letter, message, petition and visit (to a state legislator) will only help.
Tim Gruber
We would enjoy hearing from you
(updated July 4, 2008)