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From: "Isabelle & Phil White" <>
Subject: [MDWASHIN] Wahington County Genealogy
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 12:16:46 -0700


To Dory et al: Theoretically, sounds good – separation of government from other endeavors. Unfortunately that doesn’t always get us where we want to go.

Recently there have been horror stories on the internet concerning the discarding of government documents that are of great value to genealogists. Efforts have been made by local non-governmental groups to save these documents and in some cases to no avail. I even heard of one county discarding their old records and when some local citizens went to the landfill to retrieve those records, the local government got an injunction against the group. You are right when you note that government officials are elected by all the taxpayers, not just the genealogists and when space becomes precious most elected officials will do whatever is necessary to make room for what they consider priority items.

I was the director of the genealogy department at a library here in Indiana. The local government had been shuffling old documents around to various facilities for several years and in the process, some records got damaged and then discarded. Our local genealogy society in collaboration with our genealogy department at the library, applied for grants and even got the local government to help finance the rehabilitation of many old records. The genealogy society provides the manpower and the library the space and when we get the first phase of the project completed, the L.D.S. will come in and put those records on microfilm. In discussions with the County Recorder, she informed me that when the records were microfilmed, the actual records could be destroyed. I know what an uproar that would create, but the law allows that. Now, in our county, in cooperation with the library, those records can be examined to perpetuity. (hopefully)

I was at the Washington County Free Library just this past week and I was impressed with your facility. I didn’t stay long – just long enough to do what I needed – but I wasn’t aware that the facilities were that cramped. I guess you are anticipating growth problems, and I’m sure that will happen, but you might approach the local governmental officials and get them to work with you in the safekeeping of old government records.

Phil White


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