"Gangs of New York: How Reclaim The Records Fought and Won NYC Records Access" - 2022 IAJGS conf.
Channel: Reclaim The Records
Date: 2023-06-03

In late 2017, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene suddenly proposed terrible new rules restricting public access to city birth and death records. They then ignored the outcry, letters, and petitions of 5,000 angry genealogists nationwide, and simply passed the rule change.

But non-profit activist group Reclaim The Records decided to fight back, filing an unusual lawsuit against multiple NYC agencies, seeking to overturn the rule as "ultra vires" (the city overstepping its powers), and to also gain the first-ever public access to 1.6 million NYC death certificates from 1949-1968.

In November 2021, the judge finally ruled -- we'd won half the case, and would continue work on the other half in early 2022. This panel of three RTR board members and our intrepid lawyer (also a Jewish genealogist) will discuss what we did, how we legally pulled it off, and what's next for NYC records access.

This session was conducted and recorded on Sunday, August 21, 2022 as part of the annual IAJGS (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies) conference. The panel speakers are Brooke Schreier Ganz, Alec Ferretti, Alex Calzareth, and Michael Moritz.