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From: "nancycurran" <>
Subject: [APG] Question for NYC area researchers
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 13:57:38 -0500
References: <200403082200.i28M05jX012203@lists2.rootsweb.com>


Is this person respected in the genealogy research profession? I don't know
him, but it seems as if he has done outside work on company time.

Nancy Johnsen Curran
The Continuum
Genealogy research and photography in the capital region of New York State
http://pages.prodigy.net/nancycurran

New York Newsday - March 9, 2004

Archivist fined for doing free family tree searches
By Glenn Thrush, Staff Writer

The head of the municipal archives has been hit with a $1,000 fine after
admitting he performed genealogy searches for friends and paid clients on
city time and without charging required fees.

Brian Andersson, commissioner of the Department of Records and Information
Services, said he improperly supplied customers of his small private
research firm with city photos, marriage licenses and birth and death
records between 2001 and 2002.

The commissioner admitted to performing the work after promising the city
Conflicts of Interest Board he wouldn't use his post to benefit private
clients. Andersson has since dissolved the company, Ellis Island & Castle
Garden Research.

"I used DORIS records for at least four of my private clients," Andersson
wrote in a statement to the board released yesterday. "I also helped friends
and private clients locate DORIS records on City time... I now realize that
in my zeal to help my clients, there was at least a perception that the
facilitation of access to DORIS records was a conflict of interest."

Bill Cunningham, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's communications director, said the
board's decision "concludes the matter."

Andersson, a Giuliani appointee, said he was paid as much as $50 as hour by
clients, but claimed to have "never cleared a profit" from the work.

A board press release said the commissioner "cooperated fully and
expeditiously" in their investigation.

Andersson drew the ire of Democrats in 2002 by allowing former Mayor Rudy
Giuliani to cart more than 2,000 boxes of city documents to a private
warehouse instead of placing them in the municipal archives as had been
tradition. Many if the documents were later returned after Giuliani aides
vetted the material.


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