Weekly journal-miner. [volume] (Prescott, Ariz.) 1908-1929, 1913-07-23
FROM BIRTH TO
DEATH ON CARD
SYSTEM
Kansas to Keepa Herd
Book of Lives Of
Its Citizens.

| State of Kansas soon will have a
complete "herdbook' OF its citizens
Only one item is now missing from
the records, and the next Legisla-
ture will add this. When that is
done any one with desire to know
may be able to tell in five minutes
time the life history of any citizen
of the State.
The new marriage registration law
has just come into effect, and here
after all marriages are to be record
ed in the vital statistics bureau. The
one missing link in the life cycle of
the Kansas citizen is the record of
| divorces, and the next Legislature
will be asked to provide that all di-
vorce DEGREES be recorded also in
the vital statistics bureau.
When a child is born in Kansas a
record is filed at Topeka. The
physicians are required by law TO
make the reports, and there are few
cases of violations.
Card Index of Each Body.
With this record of the birth also
is filed the name of the father and
mother, the occupation of the father,
the age of the parents. and nativity
of the parents, and other minor in
formation. The original certificates
are bound in books, and kept in
fireproof vaults. But each birth is
recorded on a card index and the
page and volume where the original
certificate can be found.
When this child is married this !
fact is recorded in the same office, the |
original documents being kept in the |
same way, and there are cross in |
dices by which the original records |
are instantly available to show the |
birth OF a father or mother, the !
date of the marriage, and their chill |
dren.
Then the Death.
Then death comes to the family, |
and before the body can be inferred |
in any Kansas cemetery the death |
certificate must be made out and |
recorded and on its way to the vital
statistics bureau. And this death
record is cross indexed for instant
reference to any other of the three
important events in a human life.
According to the best available
records, out of each eight marriages
there is one divorce in Kansas The
next Legislature will be asked to
require that when a divorce decree
is signed by judge a copy of it
must be sent to the vital statistics
department to be filed there with the
other important sections of the pedi-
gree of the citizen of the State.
This divorce decree will be in
dexed just like the birth and death
records, so that one will show
where the original documents in the
four important events in a human
life may be found. Even now the
divorce record is being made up by
the clerks of the District Court,
who are not afraid of a little extra
work, for which they get no pay,
and the records of many divorces !
are kept by them, but there is no
central bureau.
Called For Many Times.
The vital statistics bureau has
been called on a hundred times in :
two years to give information on !.
births and deaths, but the marriage
records are too new to be of great
value at present Every lawyer knows :
how valuable this record is going to '.
be in future years, for every day
there come marriage records which
would be confusing in later years
Unless kept in central bureau.
On Sunday, a man from Streator,
ILL.,, married a Kansas girl. Her
nome was at Ozawkie,. Kas., in JET
'erson county Because of railroad
it was announcement for {
him to go TO Oskaloosa, the county
seat of Jefferson county, to obtain
he marriage license. As he was on
lis way to the girls home he stop
BED off in Topeka between trains
md obtained a marriage license IN {
Shawnee county A
Minister From Nebraska. 4
A marriage. license issued in one
county is good anywhere in Kansas. IL
L happened that the minister who h
performed the ceremony lived at y,
Fairbury, Neb., the brides former :
lone, and he came to Kansas to y
,fficiate at this wedding. Except II
through a central bureau of records, c
where would any one look for the ~
ecords of this marriage after 20 :
ears. and the circumstances of the
marriage had been forgotten. G
THE idea of pedigree for human al
'eings is repugnant to many people" tV
aid DR.. D. J. Crumbine, secretary {,
# the Board OF Health and chief =
# the Statistics Department. But u
his pedigree is more valuable to c.
he people of Kansas, and especially d;
o the generations to come, than the m
edigrees of fine horses, cattle, pigs, =,
nd chickens. The breeder of fine u'
took never forgets to register the
edigrees of his stock, and human if
fe and the proper record of it IS III
1ore important than the record of :,
ny animal" p
MILITARY VISITOR. &C