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Subject: [APG] Access to Irish Vital Records
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 11:43:42 EST

Have any of you from the list heard about this?
Cindy Hofmeister

Some of you may recall taking part in a petition drive a couple of years
ago having to do with improving access to records at the General Register
Office in Dublin.  The petition was circulated at the behest of the
Council of Irish Genealogical Organizations, but the results were never
widely made public.  The petition, and the customer comments were
presented to selected ministers in the relevant departments, but not
given wide release at the time in hopes that direct persuasion would have
the desired effect.  Alas, not only has the situation not gotten better,
it has gotten worse, and is due to get a LOT worse yet if proposed
legislation is allowed to go through.

One of the provisions of the proposed legislation is the removal of public
access to original birth, death and marriage records in the superintendent
registrar's offices around the country.  It's not clear but what the new
law might also withdraw permission for use of microfilm copies of these
records at LDS Libraries around the world.

But what bodes most ill for future genealogists is that records will be
identified by a national identity number which will allow government
departments to share information and link data on an individual without
the need for identifying details.  A death record, for example, would
exclude information such as the deceased's place of birth, parents' names,
spouse's name, or in the case of a married woman, maiden name.  The new
version of the death record will, however, include the "occupation" of
spouse or parents.  It doesn't matter to the Irish government what your
grandfather's name was, just what he did for a living!

Seriously folks, this is not an April Fool's joke.  Please take a look at
http://world.std.com/~ahern/CIGOrept.htm and consider writing to The Irish
Times, and other Irish and Irish-American papers to call attention to this
issue.  Communicate your concerns to the relevant government ministers.
Irish genealogists face enough hurdles as it is.  Don't let them make it
even worse.

Dennis Ahern
Acton, Mass. USA

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