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Nonpolitical New Year: BIRLS.ORG, FOIA, and Veterans [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-01
Here’s a break from the usual Kos Content, a resource for people who are looking into the past.
This is something best explained by the text on the BIRLS website (below). Essentially, you can look to see if a veteran’s records are in their database built on Veterans Administration records. It includes only deceased individuals’ information.
“… because 95% of these [VA] claims files have not yet been transferred out of the VA to the National Archives, and because until very recently it was almost impossible to access the records through FOIA, these materials were largely unknown and inaccessible to historians, journalists, and genealogists -- until now.”
The group behind the FOIA action is Reclaim the Records, a
“not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates. We identify important genealogical records sets that ought to be in the public domain but which are being wrongly restricted by government archives, libraries, and agencies. We file Freedom of Information and Open Data requests to get that public data released back to the public. And if the government doesn’t comply, we take them to court. Then we digitize everything we win and put it all online for free, without any paywalls or usage restrictions, so that it can never be locked up again. Learn more about our work and sign up for our newsletter.”
In a personal note, no, I can’t find my Irish-born grandfather among the records online, but there are suggestions on how to look further using FOIA.
A few years back, this group sued Maryland for vital records:
November 2023: Reclaim The Records announces THE MARYLAND MOTHERLODE, an enormous collection — more than a century — of Maryland birth, marriage, death, and naturalization indices and vital certificates. Most of these records have never been available online anywhere before, or were previously only accessible within the Maryland State Archives building in Annapolis.
Check out their website, and of course, as a nonprofit, donations are welcome.
But back to BIRLS --
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