Reclaim the Records is a non-profit organization that strives to obtain genealogical record collections that “ought to be” in the public domain but are restricted by government organizations. They file FOIA and Open Data requests to obtain the records and if that fails to succeed, they go to court.
Once records are obtained, the organization digitizes the records and makes them available on repositories such as the Internet Archive for public use by genealogy researchers and anyone else who has an interest.
Here is a list of all their projects, many of which are completed and now available:
- All Already-Digitized New York City Historical Records And Their Associated Text Metadata. (Yes, All.)
- Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (Birls) Death File
- Billions Of Digital Images And Associated Text Metadata Created Through The United States National Archives And Records Administration’s Digitization Partnership Program
- Brooklyn (Kings County) “Old Town” Records
- Geographic Index To New York City Births, Late 19Th To Early 20Th Centuries
- Index To Deaths In Albany, New York, 1880-1915
- Index To Deaths In Buffalo, New York, 1852-1944
- Index To Deaths In Yonkers, New York, C. 1870-1915
- Index To New York City Domestic Partnership Records, 1993-2017
- Index To New York City Marriage Licenses, 1908-1929
- Index To New York City Marriage Licenses, 1930-1995
- Index To New York City Marriage Licenses, 1996-2017
- Index To New York State Births (Outside Of New York City), 1881-1942
- Index To New York State Deaths (Outside Of New York City), 1880-1956
- Index To New York State Marriages (Outside Of New York City), 1881-2017
- List Of Registered Voters In New York City For 1924
- Missouri Birth Index, 1920(Ish)-2015
- Missouri Death Index, 1968-2015
- New Jersey Birth, Marriage, And Death Indices, 1901-1903 And 1901-1914
- New Jersey Death Index, 1904-2017
- New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901-2016
- New York City Birth Certificates, 1910-1917
- New York City Death Certificates 1949-1968 And Nullification Of Nyc Doh Records Access Rules
- Social Security Applications And Claims Index
- The Mississippi State Death Index (1912-1943)
- The Nebraska Death Index (1904-1968)
- The New Jersey Geographic Birth Index And Delayed Birth Index, 1901-1929
- Washington State Marriage, Divorce, And Death Indices, C. 1907-2017
- Wyoming Marriage, Death, And Divorce Indices, 1900-1965
To access the site and get more details as well as other collections and projects in process, go to https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/
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