Reclaim The Records, advocates for making public genealogy records free for everyone online, has announced that they have won in court the first-ever public release of the full New York State Death Index, from 1880 through the end of 2017. The organization won this data through a multi-year Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) suit filed against the largest government agency in the state, which eventually worked its way up the highest court in the state.
“After years of litigation, the New York State Court of Appeals has just handed us a resounding win in Matter of Reclaim the Records v. NY State Department of Health, ordering the state Department of Health (DOH) to turn over numerous fields of information from the New York death index through 2017,” the organization announced.
“The Court of Appeals has also ordered the DOH to justify to a lower court judge through an ‘in-camera review’ the withholding or production of any remaining data fields they might have in their possession, going field‑by‑field for all available years, with a legal presumption of public access for almost all of them,” the announcement said.
In total, Reclaim the Records is expected to receive information on more than ten million deceased New Yorkers, along with some fields of indexed information that the state has never released before. For nearly half of these records the official death information had never previously been accessible to the public in any form.
“And as soon as they hand over the data to us, we’re going to publish everything online, for free, in both searchable and downloadable formats, without any restrictions or usage contracts or paywalls, so that neither the state nor commercial entities can ever withhold it again,” Reclaim the Records announcement said. “Because that’s how we roll here. Public data belongs to — and will be returning to — the public!”
Reclaim the Records has been instrumental in bringing government held genealogy records online. If you like seeing records like these go online for free, for everyone, forever, and you want to support this work in more states nationwide, make a donation to help fund their work. You can donate on their website.
Read more about genealogy in New York State.
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